The 2018 rise to power of Brazil’s outgoing president, Jair Bolsonaro, was fleeting and resounding – taking local and international observers by surprise.
A former low-ranking military officer and congressman, Bolsonaro was known for his misogynistic and homophobic statements, but he did not have much political capital. His success was facilitated by growing discontent with the ruling left-wing Workers' Party (PT), which began in 2013 with mass mobilisations fueled by demands for better public services as the government made huge investments in two sporting mega-events in Brazil, the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.
PT’s then-president Dilma Rousseff narrowly won a second term in office in 2014. But political unrest continued to grow, mainly as a result of the economic recession and corruption scandals that hit the party during Operation Car Wash (‘Lava Jato’). This was a series of anti-corruption investigations, that put dozens of politicians and businessmen in jail, and discredited the political system – demonising the PT. The public unrest sparked by the investigations, as well as the discrediting of the PT, led to the impeachment of Rousseff in 2016 and the conviction and imprisonment of former president and left-wing leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula, in 2018.
