The former president (PL) and the trial of the criminal action in which he is accused of leading an alleged attempt to coup d’état are the focus of the cover of this week’s British magazine The Economist.
In the publication, the former president is portrayed with a face painted with the colors of Brazil and with a hat just like the “Viking of the Capitol”, one of the supporters of the president of the United States, who was known to have participated in the invasion of the US Congress on January 6, 2021.
In its pages, the magazine brings a long report on the Brazilian political trajectory and the investigation against Bolsonaro and its allies.
In a second text with an opinionated tone, Economist also discusses the differences between the way the United States dealt with threats against its democracy after attacks on the Capitol in 2021, and the conduct adopted by Brazil in recent months.
With the title “Brazil offers the United States a lesson of democratic maturity”, the editorial describes the conduct of criminal proceedings against Bolsonaro and its allies as a “fantasy of the American left.”
“The United States are becoming more corrupt, protectionist and authoritarian – with Donald Trump this week, stirring the Federal Reserve (Fed) and threatening cities controlled by Democrats. In contrast, even with the Trump government punishing Brazil for suing Bolsonaro, the country itself is determined to safeguard and strengthen its democracy,” says Economist.
The British magazine also describes Jair Bolsonaro as “polarizer” and the “Trump of the Tropics” and states that the former Brazilian president and “his allies will probably be considered guilty” by the (Supreme Court).
Also according to the text, the plan against Brazilian democracy for which Bolsonaro is accused “has failed for incompetence, not by intention.”
Bolsonaro and all the other accused deny the accusations.
According to Economist, Brazil is “a case of testing how countries recover from a populist fever.”
“In Poland, two years after the loss of power of the Law and Justice Party (PIS), a coalition led by Donald Tusk, a centrist, is being limited by a new PIS president. In the United Kingdom, Brexit is now unpopular, but Nigel Farage, the politician who inspired him, leads in the polls. Not even the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023 was able to take Israel out of his bitter divisions.
But, according to the text, the country that most lived moments similar to Brazil is the United States. And according to the British publication, the two nations “seem to be changing places.”
For Economist, the recent past with a military dictatorship can help explain why the response to threats to democracy in Brazilian territory was stronger.
“In addition, most Brazilians have no doubt about what Bolsonaro did. Most believe he tried to strike himself in power,” says the magazine, stating that even conservative politicians in the country, who will need Bolsonaro supporters to win the 2026 elections, criticize the former president’s “political style”.
And, according to the publication, this “recognition opened the opportunity for reform” in Brazil, because “most Brazilian politicians, both left and right, want to leave behind Bolsonaro’s madness and its radical polarization.”
