Presidency of Jair Bolsonaro
's tenure as the 38th president of Brazil began with his inauguration on 1 January 2019, and ended on 1 January 2023. Bolsonaro took office following his victory in the 2018 general election, defeating Fernando Haddad. His presidency ended after one term in office, following his defeat in the 2022 general election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In the years Brazil has been a democracy since 1985, Bolsonaro became the first president to lose an election as an incumbent.
His government was characterized by the strong presence of ministers with a military background, international alignment with the populist right and autocratic leaders, and was recognized for his anti-environmental, anti-indigenous people and pro gun policies. He was also responsible for a broad dismantling of cultural, scientific and educational government programmes, in addition to promoting repeated attacks on democratic institutions and spreading fake news. His government was responsible for a significant reduction in bureaucracy and modernization of public systems, with the fast-paced digitization of federal public services, through the creation of the digital platform "gov.br". Bolsonaro also sanctioned the Economic Freedom Act, reducing bureaucracy in economic activities and facilitating the opening and operation of businesses throughout the country, which proved very beneficial, especially for small companies.
During his administration crime dropped across the country and unemployment rates slowly fell, with the Brazilian GDP showing a moderate growth rate, averaging 1.5% per year. At the same time, job insecurity, inflation and hunger increased, while per capita income, social inequality and poverty reached its worst levels since 2012.
Background
Bolsonaro, at the time of his election, was a 27-year member of Congress; his victory has been credited to voter anger at the political class over years of corruption in politics, economic recession, and a surge in violent crime. According to sociologist Clara Araújo, "the dissatisfaction over the economic crisis, it seems to me, was channeled along with a discourse about conservative morals". The economy of Brazil was recovering from crisis, with an unemployment rate of 12 percent at the time of the election, double that of five years prior. The crisis was caused by, among other factors, weak commodity prices; events revealed underlying weaknesses in the economy, which include poor infrastructure, excessive bureaucracy, an inefficient tax system, and corruption.Cabinet and appointments
On 11 October 2018, days before his election victory, Bolsonaro had already announced DEM congressman Onyx Lorenzoni as the future chief of staff in his cabinet. On 31 October, president-elect Bolsonaro announced astronaut Marcos Pontes as the future Minister of Science and Technology; as of that date, he had already confirmed two other ministerial nominations: Paulo Guedes as Economy minister, and Augusto Heleno as defence minister. However, on 7 November, Augusto Heleno was appointed to the Institutional Security Office of Brazil. On the first day of November, Bolsonaro confirmed that anti-graft judge Sergio Moro had accepted his invitation to serve as Justice minister. The decision drew backlash from the international press because Moro had convicted Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro's chief political rival in the election, for money laundering and corruption.On 11 November 2018, O Estado de S. Paulo released a story stating that Bolsonaro's team has chosen World Bank director and former finance minister Joaquim Levy to head the Brazilian Development Bank. A report was later issued by Folha de S. Paulo that Bolsonaro has yet to confirm the nomination of Levy to the post. A press release from Paulo Guedes's team, released the next day, confirmed Levy's appointment. On 15 November 2018, economist Roberto Campos Neto was named as the future Central Bank governor.
In December 2018 the final composition had emerged after weeks of announcements and appointments. The cabinet would include 22 personnel, of which 16 are ministers, two are cabinet-level positions and four are secretaries directly linked to the presidency. The 22 figure is down from 29 in the outgoing administration. Seven of the ministers will be military men, eight have technocrat profiles, and seven are politicians. Hindustan Times commented that "there are just two women in Bolsonaro’s government, which is double the number in the outgoing lineup under President Michel Temer", and that "there are no blacks, despite half of Brazil’s population being at least partly descended from Africans".
On 7 November 2019, Roberto Alvim was nominated Special Secretary for Culture under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism, only to be fired on 17 January 2020 after appearing to quote a speech by German Nazi politician Joseph Goebbels in a government-sanctioned video.
On 18 June 2020, Minister of Education Abraham Weintraub resigned.
Domestic policy
In one of his first actions as president, Bolsonaro increased the minimum wage from R$954 to R$998. Within days of assuming office, Bolsonaro transferred land reform duties from the National Indigenous Foundation to the Ministry of Agriculture. Most of the remaining duties previously assigned to FUNAI are now part of the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights.Economy
Bolsonaro spent the first months of his administration trying to pass legislation and enact reforms with the stated goal of creating more economic freedom and growth for Brazil. The federal government cut taxes for some specific sectors of the economy and removed import tariffs for several areas, such as capital goods, and IT or telecommunication products which were necessary for technological evolution and increased production in the medical, industrial, and agricultural sectors. Bolsonaro also removed the import tariffs of sailing ships, jet skis and other luxury items. The government also passed a controversial pension reform, along with making other changes across the economy. The government also tried to pass economic reforms such as the Plano Mais Brasil, which enveloped around resource decentralization combined with greater fiscal responsibility in Brazil's management, reduction of taxes for productive sectors of the economy, reduction of direct state investments in the economy, and the debureaucratization of the state, while increasing funding for anti-poverty programmes. Some of those proposals were able to pass in Congress, though others were stopped in different committees. Overall, though the economy did grow, poverty and inequality expanded under Bolsonaro.According to the economist Guilherme Delgado, the proposed measures made by Bolsonaro disorganized the public service, stifled investments, privileged the rich, weakened democratic rights and deepened economic and social inequalities.
The result of Bolsonaro's economic reforms were mixed. Overall, prior to the COVID-19 recession, the Brazilian economy was recovering and growing, though at a slower pace than predicted by the government. In 2021, Brazil broke a record with more than 4 million companies being opened by the private sector, of which 1,4 million end up closing, an increase of 34.6% when compared to 2020. Talking about most of the reforms enacted by Bolsonaro, according to the Interunion Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies, "the final objective was to reduce the size of the State, not so that it could become more agile, but so that the private sector could profit from activities that were previously done by the government".
The Bolsonaro administration left Brazil with a public debt of $5,87 trillion reais. Bolsonaro ended his term leaving the largest federal debt in the history of the country. Bolsonaro was also the first Brazilian president since the Plano Real, in the mid-90s, to end his term with a real minimum wage worth less than when taking office.
Energy
The main characteristic of the Brazilian energy matrix is that it is much more renewable than most other countries. While in 2019 the world matrix was only 14% made up of renewable energy, Brazil's was at 45%. Petroleum and oil products made up 34.3% of the matrix; sugar cane derivatives, 18%; hydraulic energy, 12.4%; natural gas, 12.2%; firewood and charcoal, 8.8%; varied renewable energies, 7%; mineral coal, 5.3%; nuclear, 1.4%, and other non-renewable energies, 0.6%. In the electric energy matrix, the difference between Brazil and the world is even greater: while the world only had 25% of renewable electric energy in 2019, Brazil had 83%. The Brazilian electric matrix is composed of: hydraulic energy, 64.9%; biomass, 8.4%; wind energy, 8.6%; solar energy, 1%; natural gas, 9.3%; oil products, 2%; nuclear, 2.5%; coal and derivatives, 3.3%.During Bolsonaro's presidency, the installation of wind energy and solar energy reached its highest level throughout history. according to ONS, total installed capacity of wind energy was 19.1 GW, with average capacity factor of 30%. In 2020 Brazil was the 8th country in the world in terms of installed wind power. according to ONS, total installed capacity of photovoltaic solar was 8.9 GW, with average capacity factor of 24%. In 2020, Brazil was the 14th country in the world in terms of installed solar power.
Bolsonaro is against any kind of taxation on solar energy. In 2020, the government zeroed the tax on solar energy import of solar energy equipment.