The stabbing of the Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday 6 September is being widely seen as a symptom of the country’s polarised politics.
The archbishop of Salvador and primate of Brazil, Murilo Krieger, commented: ‘It’s sad that a country that is already in such confusion should have to go through this because of one person’s madness. Society’s response has been unanimous. No one is in favour of this violence; all this damages democracy. At the same time it reminds us that we must unite around ideas that are worthwhile, and one of these is respect for those who think differently from us.”
The attack perforated Bolsonaro’s large intestine and he has been given a temporary colostomy to prevent infection, but is said to be making good progress, He is likely to need two months’ recuperation before he can resume campaigning, which effectively leaves him out of front-line action for the rest of the campaign; the first round of the election is on 7 October and, if no candidate secures a clear majority, there will be a second round on 28 October. Bolsonaro’s attacker claimed he was acting on a message from God; he had for a time been a member of a small left-wing party.
Bolsonaro is generally described as on the extreme right. He makes much of his status as a reserve army officer and has praised the Brazilian military dictatorship of 1964-1985. He is in favour of relaxing Brazil’s arms controls and, for example, of allowing landowners to shoot invaders of their property. He is also facing a charge of racism for comments about Afro-Brazilians.
Before the attack he was leading the polls, and the first poll to be published since the attack shows him with a slightly increased lead, giving credence to the idea of a sympathy vote, though he also has the highest level of rejection among the candidates.
Brazilian politics has moved sharply to the right after a series of corruption scandals involving the left-wing Workers Party, culminating in the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 (though this is widely regarded as a political manoeuvre) and the conviction and imprisonment for corruption in April this year of the Workers Party’s most famous figure, former president Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula. The Workers Party nominated Lula as its presidential candidate for 2018, but the electoral authorities ruled him ineligible because of his conviction. Until that point, Lula had led the opinion polls.