Local Elections in Brazil: The Return of the Living Dead
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- Published on Thursday, 24 December 2020 01:26
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Local Elections in Brazil: The Return of the Living Dead
Jörg Nowak
Brazil held local elections this past November. These always take place midway through the legislative terms of the presidency and the national parliament, and hence, serve as an important temperature check on the general political mood. Usually, the party of the sitting president who was elected two years earlier receives a boost. Yet, since president Jair Bolsonaro is not a member of a political party, things are slightly more complicated this time.
Three issues stand out regarding the results. First, the old and new centre-right parties were the most successful. Second, candidates close to Bolsonaro had only limited... success. Third, the Workers’ Party (PT) failed to elect a single mayor to any state capital for the first time since the return to democracy in the second half of the 1980s, while candidates from other left parties recorded successes in some state capitals.
These results require some qualification before going into more detail. The results do not signal a crisis for Bolsonaro’s presidency since his approval ratings are between 36 and 40 per cent, a comparably good result for a sitting presidentre, while his rejection rates in the previous month hovered between 31 and 40 per cent, depending on the polling. Since August 2020, Bolsonaro has enjoyed higher approval than rejection rates for the first time since May 2019. Rejection rates peaked during May and June 2020 after Minister of Justice Sergio Moro, the symbol of the anti-corruption stance, left the government and after a key witness in an alleged corruption investigation involving one of Bolsonaro’s sons, Fabio Bolsonaro, was arrested after 18 months on the run.
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