Today in Brazil, corruption charges could undermine democracy. While the democracy holds competitive elections and sits on a 72% “free” scale, the country holds high when it comes to polarization, both economically, and politically. In researching the case of Brazil, what must be noted is the similarities between itself and the United States. While the country is marked as ‘free” it still has become increasingly polarized and the citizens have lost trust in their own government. Additionally, economics and the elite have played a critical role in the case of Brazil. Business owners, especially wealthy ones, tend to be particularly self-serving, using political leverage for their own gain.
The high levels of polarization have not always been the case in Brazil. In 2013, Brazilians interested in progressive social movements and Brazilians interested in the anti-corruption movement were on a continuum, mirroring each other closely. By late 2013, citizens on the right had coalesced around corruption, and the left and right pulled apart politically and socially. By 2016, the parties were absolutely irreconcilable. This is still the case today, and the “us vs. them” mentality that is present in Brazil.
More critically, the government has failed to address the violence and corruption, as well as economic exclusion of minorities in Brazil. The country is well known for “rent seeking” which happens when business elites see opportunity and use political leverage for their own self interest. With this, politicians attempt to use their power to weaken the rule of law and also manipulate investigations to take down their political opponents. One example of this is the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff. Not only was she framed for “minor fiscal mismanagement,” but a year later, her mentor was prosecuted, and the right leaning legislators have attempted to shield her successor from any form of corruption charges. Another example of corruption is “Operation Car Wash” which ended up exposing a relationship between Judge Sérgio Moro and the prosecutors involved in the investigation. The investigation focused primarily on “bribery, money laundering, and bid-rigging.” As for inequalities among minority groups, access to justice can vary greatly due to financial status.
The main causes of erosion in the Brazil case are due to the corruption investigations that leave citizens feeling that the entire system is messed up. This has led to decreased voter turnout, and other forms of political polarization. Business owners, for example, take part in the encouragement of corruption against elected officials, and also attempt to sway their employees on how to vote, sometimes giving them benefits for voting a certain way. Criminals have also taken part in physically attacking political candidates, and homicide rates stand high, including extrajudicial killings, particularly among black people. In 2022, there were more than 6,100 deaths caused by police the previous year. Prisons are overcrowded, violence impacts poor prisoners, and there is disease and gang-related violence. Surveys have shown that around 70% of respondents are fearful of the threats as well as harassment simply because of their political views. Additionally, the government is not particularly trustworthy. It does not always release information, mainly throughout the Bolsonaro presidency. Bolsonaro used a secret budget, which aided lawmakers in support of the regime.
It was in 2022 that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from the Workers’ Party (PT) won again for the second time, giving the PL the largest number of seats in both houses of the National Congress. In his campaign, he primarily focused on economic difficulties as well as poverty levels. With that, outgoing President Bolsonaro previously had claimed that Brazil had an untrustworthy voting system, potentially leading to election fraud. This campaign itself was incredibly polarized, full of misinformation as well as political violence. There was “aggressive rhetoric” on social media, along with the move to stay silent rather than concede by President Bolsonaro. His supporters protested, blocking roads and attempting to call for military intervention. Bolsonaro even challenged the court on the election results, insulting and intimidating different Supreme Court Justices. At the time of the election, carrying guns was prohibited around polling places before, on, and the day following election day due to the large amounts of violence that were taking place.
Social media posts have been instrumental in the fight against corruption. Similar to the United States, there have been around 2.8 million posts with forms of threats and offensive content around election time. With that, President Bolsonaro was key in those offensive comments, further giving reason for people to believe that the system was corrupt. Bolsonaro blocked his critics’ accounts on social media pages.
In a multitude of ways, Brazil is similar to the United States. In 2023, extremist groups invaded the headquarters of the three branches of power, broke windows and destroyed historical pieces as well as art, similar to that of the January 6th insurrection in the United States. This impacted the entire electoral system. A system that is trusted internationally began to get questioned. People were also trying to say, along with Bolsonaro, that the electronic ballot box was fraudulent. However, while the Brazil invasion was similar to that of the US insurrection, Brazil may be in deeper water than the United States. In Brazil, it was hard to see where loyalties of the military as well as the other security forces lied. Also, no military personnel took action to prepare for the coup. The new Lula government has said that it will do everything to punish those involved.
In conclusion, the delegitimization of elections as well as the political violence that has taken place in Brazil have led to erosion. The corruption itself leads to a mistrust across political parties as well as a complete undermining of political processes. It is true that political processes, in the case of Brazil and the United States both, are not being used to uphold the integrity of institutions. Instead, these impeachment processes are being used to change results. Some believe that the Lula government will emerge stronger from the erosion, but the attacks on the different institutions prove that things like this can happen time and time again, considering the questions regarding loyalty to the Bolsanaro government.
Hi Abby! This was a really interesting profile on some of the recent examples of erosion going in Brazil. I was particularly interested in what you had to say regarding how social media in Brazil has been used to spread offensive content and threats. It reminded me of the present debates going on in the United States about the role that social media plays in spreading disinformation. In your opinion, do you think that social media should be more heavily regulated to combat online threats and misinformation? In my opinion, I think it should be, potentially through the use of a non-biased institution that could properly assess different online threats without outside influence. Obviously, some would categorize this as threatening free speech and it would undoubtedly be a complicated process to undergo for different countries. Still, I feel like social media continues to present one of the largest threats to democracy not just in Brazil and the US, but around the world. It feels like something has to be done to combat how it continually manages to erode democracy.