Dr Brigitte Weiffen, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics
Dr Richard Heffernan, Reader in Government

31st January 2023

Richard Heffernen and Brigitte Weiffen presented timely and contrasting analysis of recent elections in the United States and Brazil. Both states had gone through a period of political turmoil, with democratic institutions under stress due to the emergence of, what has been considered by many as, populist leaderships. In Brazil the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro was marked by controversy over the handling of the pandemic, a questioning of man-made climate change and, in its final days a challenge to the democratic process, with the failure to acknowledge the victory of his opponent, Lula da Silva. Two years earlier, Donald Trump, had questioned the outcome of the presidential election in the United States that resulted in the events of January 6, culminating in demonstrators invading the US Congress. The elections, in 2022, in the United States, were about Trump pushing to regain the Whitehouse and his brand of Republican politics capturing high office. In a parallel between the two events Trump and Bolsonaro were rejected by the voters, but what might come after them is far from clear. For Brigitte the answer is the hope for a pragmatic democratic politics that begins to address some of the key problems in Brazil, for Richard the future is less clear and he is more pessimistic about what might be achieved at the next presidential election, in two years’ time.

Brigitte’s presentation outlined the political structure of the Brazilian state, which has many similarities to the United States. It has an executive president and two houses of congress, but unlike the US there is a fragmented multi party system, with some twenty political parties represented in congress, grouped around two broad coalitions of the Workers Party, on the left and the Social Democrats, on the right; this has made governing difficult. The system emerged in the transition from military dictatorship to democracy in the 1980s.

Bolsonaro came to power after a long period of leadership by the Leftist Workers Party. There had been growing discontent at corruption under their leadership and the disenchantment with the system saw a decline in support for traditional parties, which permitted an outsider, like Bolsonaro, to gain electoral support for his presidential campaign. He portrayed himself as against corruption and an advocate of traditional Christian values, which was expressed through his alliance with the Evangelical movement that has a significant Medea presents in Brazil. He also enjoyed support from the large landowners and sections of the armed forces. However, it the presidential election his performance in office was perceived to have been poor and Lula emerged victorious from this contest. Less clear cut was the elections for Congress, which saw the right maintain their majority. Despite these limitations Lula has been able to build a coalition for democracy, with the Social Democrats, though there remains a large block around Bolsonaro who oppose Lula and question the democratic process. The administration faces economic and environmental challenges that will require the support of Congress and the need to maintain a coalition of forces, which may well be possible, as the Brazilian parties are not as polarised as in the United States.

Given the optimism of Brigitte’s assessment, Richard argued that the mid term elections in the US suggested a less sanguine outcome. While he argued that Biden had won and Trump had lost the election this was a complex story. Though Trump had won the house it was not by the expected landslide and a failure to manage expectations had added to the perception that the Democrats had won. It has not been since 1934 that a sitting president has not suffered some sort of defeat at the mid-term elections. Richard argues that the result was bad for pollsters and bad for the republic, with Trump being a symptom of a polarizing trend in US politics. For Richard the key outcomes of the election were to expose the limited utility of polling and the way it can be used to frame and influence media messages rather than inform the public. The media as a whole, he suggests, has become increasingly partisan, resulting in a lack of public debate, or focus on informing the citizenry; replacing it with promotion of preferred political narratives. As Richard acknowledges, a free press is essential for an effective democracy, but a media that is so partial to one side or the other ends up damaging the body politic. The decline in media objectivity, he argues, also reflects the poor quality of candidates in the election, such as Dr Oz in Pennsylvania, who was personally picked by former President Trump. Oz was a controversial figure in the Covid 19 pandemic, making questionable claims about the drug Hydroxychloroquine, which were later shown to be false, resulting in him being accused of quackery. Personality, and fidelity to Trump’s brand of Republican politics was seen as more important than political competence and ability. Looking forward, the results, Richard maintained, suggest that age will be the key issue at the next presidential election in two years’ time. The relative success of Biden has meant he is likely to be the Democratic candidate, in 2024, at the age of 82, despite questions over his health, and the fact he has spent more time away from the White House than in the Oval Office. Trump, on the other hand, despite being seen as a loser has maintained his grip on the Republican Party and could be their candidate, at the relatively young age – compared to Biden – of 77.

As mentioned in the introduction, what we see in both of these elections was a rejection, by the voters, of what has been termed populism - though some might argue that this needs more clarification. Both events, also suggest, that Brazil and the United States remain polarised and there is increasing difficulty in finding ground to build political compromise or offer shared visions of a future society. As Brigitte argues, and Richard also echoes, the pandemic, economic volatility, and public scepticism about established political institutions reflect an element of crisis within the political systems that remains to be addressed.