Brazilian elections: Is global populism in retreat?

On 30 October, Brazil elected Lula da Silva as its new president, ousting populist leader Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro’s departure sees the first incumbent president to fail to win re-election, a humiliating label for the former president. Much of this unpopularity can be traced back to the Bolsonaro Administration’s mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw 700,000 Brazilians killed. Another contributing factor to the defeat is the accompanying economic hardship deriving from the pandemic which has placed 33,000,000 more in hunger, increasing discontentment directed at the Government. 

Bolsonaro’s campaign was textbook populism. He railed against academics and the media, whilst alleging a leftist attack on family values. The former president also declared the only circumstances he could lose would be due to cheating, at the behest of faulty voting machines; echoing Trumpist rhetoric from the 2020 presidential election. Following the election result, ‘Bolsonaristas’, Bolsonaro’s keenest supporters, have been creating domestic trouble largely through road blocks. On 31 October, following the result, there were as many as 300 of these roadblocks. While Bolsonaro may have encouraged these supporters to end their misbehaviour, it is evident that his more devout supporters may refuse to accept the result of this election. Brazil has rejected Bolsonaro’s style of politics by a slim margin of 50.9% to 49.1%, leaving the nation more divided than ever as Lula approaches his inauguration at the beginning of January 2023.

But what does this mean in the context of global populism? Brazil’s rejection of Bolsonaro is part of a series of countries rejecting populism. Most notably, the United States voted President Trump out of office in 2020, replacing him with Joe Biden, a relatively more centrist style of governance. Similarly, Boris Johnson’s departure as prime minister could spell an end to populist rhetoric in the UK. Brexit is no longer the trump card that can be brought out to attack the Labour Party, and with the Conservative Party currently set to heavily lose the next general election in 2025 at the very latest, a more moderate style of government could appear in the UK. Furthermore, the French presidential election earlier this year saw France reject Marine Le Pen’s brand of populism for the second time in a row, with Macron’s re-election in April. Le Pen’s party gained just 17% of the vote in the legislative elections this year, albeit still making them the third largest party in the National Assembly. These are all positive movements in the public sphere of debate.

However, while there are reasons to be positive as to the direction in which populism is going, there are still plenty of worrying signs about the ideology’s role in modern politics. Similar to the Brazilian election, the margin by which Biden and Macron won their respective campaigns was much tighter than perhaps could be hoped for. Biden won by 51.3% to Trump’s 46.8%. Macron’s victory was by 58.55% to 41.45%, which was a closer result than when the pair faced off in 2017. In addition to this, the emergence of new populist leaders, such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, is concerning. Euroscepticism is prevalent in Meloni’s ideology, as she attacks the European Union for being involved in ethnic replacement in Italy, while lambasting ‘woke ideology.’ While new populist leaders emerging is an obvious concern, so are the well-established populists like Viktor Orban in Hungary. Orban has been in power since 2010 and has slowly eroded democratic institutions in Hungary. His populist beliefs take a similar shape to Meloni, believing non-European immigration to be a problem, and gay-rights a threat. It is evident that populism is still very prevalent in modern politics, and while there has been an element of a roll-back on this type of politics, there is a substantial amount of work to do to erase it.

Several questions remain as to what happens next in terms of the future of populism. It is entirely plausible that the United States could re-elect Donald Trump as president in 2024, which would be an enormous boost to current populist leaders and potential candidates. In addition to this, Putin’s war in Ukraine also presents challenges. With the war going badly, it is likely Russia will interfere in future elections to try and split the united front that Europe and North America has created in support of Ukraine. Furthermore, the cost-of-living crisis is bound to be a useful platform from which populists can launch attacks on incumbent governments and divide populations against each other. It is likely this debate will present governments with both the greatest challenge while simultaneously being the largest attack point from populist candidates. If governments want to prevent further difficulties arising from populism, their management of the cost-of-living crisis must be expert.