The Remarkable Rise of the Brazilian President's Social Liberal Party A Working Paper May 2019 Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D. and Edmund Ruge Abstract Jair Bolsonaro’s extraordinary victory triggered a remarkable coattail effect in Brazil’s 2018 elections. In a single year, the president’s Partido Social Liberal (PSL) was transformed from a small liberal- oriented political faction with a couple of federal deputies to a game-changing political force. The PSL elected 52 candidates in the 513 seat Chamber of Deputies as well as four senators and now rivals the Workers Party (PT) as the largest party in the highly fragmented National Congress. The PSL’s conservative brand expanded through social media as the party’s candidates and activists pushed out anti-PT and anti-establishment messages, often voiced by their presidential candidate, to increase the aggregate number of followers across multiple social media platforms. The party’s low cost-high impact campaign strategy reached millions of citizens during the second half of 2018 and eventually triggered a historic political realignment in the 2018 elections. This special BrazilWorks Working Paper examines the remarkable rise of the PSL and its congressional delegation to better understand its impact on governance and democratic development in Brazil under the Bolsonaro administration. Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D. is Director of BrazilWorks and Senior Fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Arizona. Follow him on Twitter @brazil_works or contact him via [email protected]. Edmund Ruge is a freelance journalist and researcher based in Rio de Janeiro. He holds a Master’s degree in International Economics and Latin American Studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Follow him on Twitter at @edmundruge or contact him via [email protected]. BrazilWorks (www.brazilworks.net) provides analysis and advisory services to decision makers. We engage our policy research and evaluation expertise alongside our dialogue and negotiation services to support leaders and organizations as they take decisions to advance their mission and goals. We specialize in Brazilian policy research and evaluation, and work in collaboration with associates throughout Brazil and around the world. BrazilWorks maintains offices in Washington, D.C. and Brasília. © Copyright 2019 Mark S. Langevin and Edmund Ruge 2 BrazilWorks.net The Remarkable Rise of the Brazilian President's Social Liberal Party Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D. Edmund Ruge Jair Bolsonaro, the new president of Brazil, is bent on rewriting political history and changing the course of Brazilian democracy for decades to come. Bolsonaro may govern but his Partido Social Liberal (Social Liberal Party or PSL) now drives the conservative-nationalist movement that swept the president to victory and triggered an historic political realignment in last year’s critical elections.1 Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign began with his vote to impeach then-president Dilma Rousseff on April 17, 2016. In Brasilia’s Chamber of Deputies. Bolsonaro dedicated his vote to Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, the man who administered the military dictatorship’s intelligence operations (DOI-Codi) and its infamous clandestine detention center where Rousseff was tortured.2 In his short speech, Bolsonaro mocked Rousseff and the Workers Party (PT) before yelling out his campaign slogan, “Brazil first, God above all else.” His parliamentary theatrics thrust him to the center-stage of the nation’s politics and polarized the nation behind his explicit commemoration of Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964 to 1985). Thereafter, increasing numbers of Brazilians understood Bolsonaro as a charismatic man of destiny, a salvador da patria in Brazilian terms. His growing legion of followers called him the “Myth” and the “Captain.” It did not hurt that his middle name was Messias, the Portuguese word for messiah. Bolsonaro may have spent nearly three decades as a backbencher in congress,3 but in 2018 he emerged as the solution for a majority of Brazilian voters ready for an “outsider.” In the October 7th first round balloting, Bolsonaro beat all comers with 46.03 percent of all valid votes. In the second-round, he easily outpaced the PT’s Fernando Haddad with 57,797,847 votes, or 55.13 percent of all valid votes.4 Today, Jair Bolsonaro is president of the world’s fourth largest democracy, 1 This article is partially based on two shorter pieces published by the authors in the London School of Economics and Political Science- Latin America and Caribbean blog. “Wilderness to wildest dreams: the remarkable rise of Bolsonaro’s Social Liberal Party in Brazil.” Published on March 1, 2019 and accessed at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2019/03/01/wilderness-to-wildest-dreams-the-remarkable-rise-of-bolsonaros-social- liberal-party-in-brazil/ and “Bolsonaro’s base: the Social Liberal Party’s strengths in Rio de Janeiro could yet become weaknesses. Published on March 13, 2019 and accessed at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2019/03/13/bolsonaros- base-the-social-liberal-partys-strengths-in-rio-de-janeiro-could-yet-become-weaknesses/. 2 For a review of Bolsonaro’s admiration of Ustra see “Quem é Ustra, o torturador celebrado por Bolsonaro até hoje.” Carta Capital. October 17, 2018 and accessed at: https://www.cartacapital.com.br/politica/quem-e-ustra-o-torturador-celebrado-por- bolsonaro-ate-hoje/. 3 For Bolsonaro’s legislative record see “Jair Bolsonaro, o mito de pés de barro.” Congresso em Foco. 26th edition (2018) and accessed at: https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/jair-bolsonaro-o-mito-de-pes-de-barro/. 4 BBC News Brasil. “Bolsonaro presidente: veja os resultados da apuração.” October 28, 2018 and accessed at: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-45995934. 3 BrazilWorks.net the leader of the fastest growing political party in Brazil, and the center of a disruptive conservative- nationalist movement that promises to redirect the course of Brazilian democracy for a generation. Bolsonaro’s surging popularity in 2018 and the remarkable rise of his PSL emerged from the wreckage of the compounding crisis that shipwrecked Brazil by late 2014.5 The combination of the Lava Jato (Car Wash) corruption scandal,6 stemming from Petrobras procurement kickbacks to politicians and political parties, and the deep recession that shaved off some seven percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 2015 to 2017, cracked the political and institutional foundation of Brazilian democracy while opening the door to its loudest voices. Politicians gained popularity by bashing the PT and the political establishment for the “sins” of Brazil.7 Bolsonaro learned to couple the powerful reach of social media platforms with his rant and rave populism, obtaining the most votes of any Rio de Janeiro federal deputy candidate in 2014. Thereafter he multiplied this powerful political recipe across every region of Brazil just as trust in the political establishment and the approval levels of President Michel Temer hit rock bottom. The only obstacle standing between Bolsonaro and the presidential palace was former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party or PT). Support for Lula intensified as federal prosecutors worked to convict him on Lava Jato-related corruption charges. While Lula held the media spotlight in late 2017 and early 2018, Bolsonaro campaigned to increase his name recognition and expand his legion of social media followers, known by some as bolsominions. Datafolha measured voters’ intentions in March 2017 and detected a 36 percent plurality ready to return Lula to the presidency. The same poll revealed that Bolsonaro was running second with a modest 18 percent approval.8 One year later, Lula was convicted and jailed despite a rise to 39 percent support among prospective voters. However, his conviction nullified his campaign registry under the Ficha Limpa or Clean Slate law that forbids candidates with criminal convictions from seeking elected office.9 Bolsonaro continued in second place with 19 percent and relatively high voter rejection levels, casting doubt on his ability to garner a majority down the home stretch. In September of 2018, everything changed. 5 For background see Langevin, Mark S. “Brazil’s Compounding Crisis.” Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). May 22, 2016 and accessed at: http://www.coha.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Brazil%E2%80%99s-Compounding- Crisis_M.Langevin.pdf. 6 Claire Felter and Rocio Cara Labrador. “Brazil’s Corruption Fallout.” Council on Foreign Relations. Updated on November 7, 2018 and accessed at: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/brazils-corruption-fallout. 7 Mark Langevin. “Brazil’s crisis of political legitimacy has opened the door to rant-and-rave populist Jair Bolsonaro.” London School of Economics and Politics Latin America and Caribbean Blog. November 29, 2017 and accessed at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2017/11/29/brazils-crisis-of-political-legitimacy-has-opened-the-door-to-rant-and-rave- populist-jair-bolsonaro/ and for a contrasting view see Alfredo Saad-Filho And Armando Boito. “Brazil: The Failure Of The PT And The Rise Of The ‘New Right.” Socialist Register. 2016 and accessed at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/41269007/Alfredo_Armando_Failure_of_PT_Rise_New_Right.pdf?AW SAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1556895990&Signature=9aHqGLvoUjSDnAHvm8bn9xZxeI0%3