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TEHRAN, October 02 -Brazil’s business class is quietly rooting for far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro to win the nation’s highest office this month, fearful of a return to leftist rule in Latin America’s largest economy.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -Brazil’s business class is quietly rooting for far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro to win the nation’s highest office this month, fearful of a return to leftist rule in Latin America’s largest economy.
The nation’s currency and equity markets have increasingly rallied in lock-step with favorable poll numbers for Bolsonaro, a firebrand congressman better known for his broadsides against gays and Afro-Brazilians than his embrace of free markets. Over a 27-year legislative career, Bolsonaro has voted repeatedly to preserve state-owned monopolies and against reforming Brazil’s bloated public pension system.
But his selection of a respected University of Chicago-educated banker, Paulo Guedes, as his economic advisor is good enough for many investors and business owners. Some view Bolsonaro as the least worst alternative in a race that is shaping up as a showdown between the far right and far left.
Pollsters are predicting a second-round run-off between Bolsonaro and former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad, candidate for the leftist Workers Party, or PT, who has been surging in the polls. Many economists blame statist policies of the PT, which ruled Brazil for much of the past 15 years, for tipping Brazil into a deep downturn, whose vestiges are still weighing on the economy.
Luciano Hang, the owner of the privately-owned department store chain Havan, is one of few executives to openly support Bolsonaro, whose unabashed admiration for Brazil’s former military dictatorship and frequent denigration of women and minorities have alienated large swaths of the electorate.
Still, Hang estimates that “more than 80 percent” of people in a 300-member business council to which he belongs are backing Bolsonaro now that more moderate candidates in a crowded presidential field appear to be fading.
“Business people and entrepreneurs throughout Brazil in all segments of the public favor Bolsonaro and will actively campaign for him,” Hang said.
Bolsonaro’s growing acceptance among Brazil’s business elites underscores how a polarized political landscape is driving moderates to extremes, and how markets are unsettled by a wide-open and unpredictable race. Those jitters have already slowed the country’s M&A and IPO markets to a crawl and last month sent Brazil’s currency, the real, to a record low against the dollar.
Bolsonaro is the current front-runner among 13 presidential candidates heading into the first round of balloting slated for Oct. 7, with 27 percent of the likely vote, according to a survey last week from polling firm Ibope.
Source: Reuters
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