Extreme right-wing radicalism in Brazil will depend on Lula’s performance in government

Luciano Falbo – from Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – Without the strength to cause the desired rupture, the antidemocratic acts in front of the barracks are, today, a way that Bolsonarism found to remain in evidence and with electoral force, although the main leader, President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), has been reclusive since the victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

The success or failure of the next government are credited by scholars as the main factors to curb or reignite the radicalisation of the far-right in Brazil.

Political scientist Pedro Santos Mundim, a professor at the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), believes that the polarisation scenario, with one of the poles led by Bolsonarism, will continue, at least in the medium term. The level of radicalisation will depend on how the political elites behave and, obviously, on the results of the new Lula government.

“If it is a government that manages to deliver, to accomplish a lot and has a high approval rating, this radicalisation will cool down in public opinion. If it doesn’t manage to deliver so many things, the criticisms may start to grow and then it may be that we will again observe, in fact, this radicalisation in public opinion as well. But everything leads us to believe that there will be a period of calm there”, said Mundim in an interview to CENARIUM MAGAZINE.

The political scientist Ludolf Waldmann Junior, professor at the Federal University of Amazonas (Ufam), also believes that radicalism will still have a reasonable strength in the coming years, because it represents a significant amount of the electorate. “However, the trend is of decline”, he projects.

“The extreme radicalism, seen in the recent demonstrations, drove part of the more moderate conservative voters away from Bolsonaro, considering the disturbances caused and the very ridicule to which the coup protesters were exposed,” Waldmann Júnior pointed out.

The researcher considers that, by leaving the public machine, Bolsonarism loses valuable resources to maintain its mobilization, set the political agenda or ensure the co-option of sectors of the State structure for its authoritarian projects. “Moreover, Lula has a profile, traditionally, quite conciliatory, something reinforced even by his alliance with Geraldo Alckmin.”

Like Santos Mundim, he assesses that if the next government succeeds in “national reconstruction”, Bolsonarism will cool even further.

“Lula’s profile is that of a negotiator, something he has maintained since his trade union activities and, despite the rejection of his figure and the PT he is probably one of the few political figures, today, if not the only one, who has the prestige and skill necessary to curb radicalisation”, he analyses.

Waldmann Júnior says that this process of mitigating radicalisation involves both the ability to make a pact of national reconstruction that aims to review the setbacks of the Bolsonaro management, and also the ability to be able to meet the wishes of the population in terms of improvements in the economy and living conditions “that were greatly affected by the pandemic and the disastrous policies taken by the current government”.

“If Lula succeeds in this endeavour, radicalism will certainly tend to diminish, otherwise the tendency is for these extremist groups to return, perhaps with even greater force”, he warns.

Essayist João Cezar de Castro Rocha, professor of comparative literature at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), believes that in the coming weeks, only a radicalised core of fanatics will remain in these acts. “Many have turned radicalism into a prosperous business: lackeys, profits and likes that grow in the exact proportion in which they defend a dictatorship”, the professor published on his Twitter account.

According to him, the “market” of fanatics will diminish. “Therefore, they will be even more radicals and lunatics – especially, those living abroad”, he notes. The scholar advocates that institutions “act up to the enormous and the unprecedented challenge”. “Anyone who defends dictatorship commits a crime and needs to be prosecuted. It is that or we will never have a solid democracy”.

In relation to those who, according to him, will return home ashamed, Rocha says it will be necessary to build bridges and “work so that they leave the prison of the extremist media, which produced the world’s worst case of collective cognitive dissonance”.