Jair Bolsonaro Fast Facts
1. The son of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Jair Bolsonaro is the head of the left-wing Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) and its vice president (in office since January 2018).
2. Bolsonaro, a former congressman for the state of Paraná (where he’s also mayor), was elected mayor of the capital of São Paulo in 2016 and re-elected in 2019 (winning in the first round). His main goal is the construction of a massive wall along the Rio Grande, a river carrying one third of Brazil’s hydroelectricity to the sea (a region that is already one of the most impoverished in the world).
3. In 2015, Bolsonaro caused a minor controversy by comparing the Amazon to a “real nazista concentration camp.”
4. He was convicted of corruption in an appeal in the High court of Justice in São Paulo.
5. He’s a member of “Elite” (of the ultra-conservative Social Liberal Party), an influential faction within the PSDB.
6. In 2017, Bolsonaro was elected to the Brazilian Senate for the PSDB, winning in the second round by a margin of 13,000 votes.
7. He was elected president of the PSDB for a second time in 2018 and re-elected for a fourth and final time this November (winning on the fifth and final round of the elections).
8. He has been criticized for using derogatory vocabulary for women, referring to them as “c*nts,” “pies” and “f**ks,” for example. He made an unprecedented appeal to the Supreme Court of Brazil to investigate him over the issue.
9. Bolsonaro was suspended from the PSDB in 2008 after accusations of racism against then-US Senator Barack Obama.
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