Tom Rogan
Brazilian presidential
front-runner Jair Bolsonaro has made unpleasant remarks and has authoritarian
impulses. That has made the former army officer a target for withering Western
media criticism.
Fair enough. But why does Bolsonaro's opponent, socialist candidate Fernando Haddad, get a free pass?
I ask this because, assessed
against the scale of challenges and opportunities facing the Brazilian people,
Haddad deserves a far tougher gaze than he's receiving. The Economist, for
example, is offering utterly absurd editorials in Haddad's support, presenting
him as a moderate. The evidence suggests that Haddad is actually a devout
socialist and loyal party man.
When it comes to the socialist
Workers Party, loyalty is a negative rather than noble feature. After all, the
Workers Party is at the heart of a systemic corruption scandal that has seen
former President Lula da Silva imprisoned and his successor, Dilma Rousseff impeached and
removed from office. The centerpiece of that scandal, now investigated as
"Car Wash," involves Brazilian politicians taking big bribes in
return for business contracts. And where candidate Barack Obama came out of the
Chicago swamp with his reputation and integrity intact, Haddad is a true swamp
dweller candidate. The former professor has been charged by prosecutors for
taking bribes from a construction company while serving as Sao Paulo mayor.
The world is imperfect, and
Bolsonaro is far from a saint. But let's consider which candidate offers the
best program for Brazil's better future.
First, there's no evidence
from Haddad's program that the would-be-president has any interest in serious
reform. Haddad wants to boost public spending on already bloated
entitlement programs, increase state control over the economy, and raise taxes.
These things will do nothing to give Brazil a more efficient economy that
creates new jobs and attracts greater foreign investment. In contrast,
Bolsonaro is pledging to expand the independence of Brazil's central bank, privatize
corrupt and inefficient state-owned industries, reduce the government
bureaucracy and workforce, and simplify Brazil's complex, evasion-heavy tax
code. These proposals are textbook reforms of the kind that saved Margaret
Thatcher's Britain from its socialist nightmare.
It's the same dichotomy on
security issues.Where Haddad offers more of the same, which has led Brazil into
war-like crime levels, Bolsonaro offers at least some measure of innovation.
The conservative candidate wants to boost civilian rights to gun ownership (the
gangs have an abundance of guns already), and greater resourcing for police
investigations that can target senior criminals.
Don't misunderstand me,
Bolsonaro is far from perfect here: he's pledging, for example, to grant
relative impunity to police officers who use excessive force. Yet Brazil is in
a real crisis. Unlike his opponent, Bolsonaro at least recognizes that
Brazilians need and are demanding decisive action. It might spark
groans in Western capitals, but Bolsonaro's pledge to put the armed forces into
action against criminal gangs does not reflect dystopian ideals. It reflects
public desperation.
Ultimately, when it comes to
the big question of whether Haddad or Bolsonaro is better for Brazil's future,
I see very little doubt as to the answer. It's Bolsonaro, stupid. And just as
the Economist was wrong in opposing Narendra Modi's campaign to lead India, they are wrong about Bolsonaro. Only he
offers the urgent reforms necessary to make Brazil's future brighter.
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner, 23-10-2018
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