Jair Bolsonaro

Jair Messias Bolsonaro (Brazilian Portuguese: [ʒaˈiʁ meˈsi.ɐz bowsoˈnaɾu] ; born 21 March 1955) is a Brazilian politician and former military officer who served as the 38th president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023. He previously served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1991 to 2019.

Born in Glicério, São Paulo, Bolsonaro began serving in the Brazilian Army in 1973 and graduated from the Military Academy of Agulhas Negras in 1977. He attracted publicity in 1986, after he wrote an article for Veja magazine criticizing the low wages of military officers, after which he was arrested and detained for fifteen days. He left the army, and was elected to the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro two years later. In 1990, he was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a representative for the state of Rio de Janeiro. During his 27-year tenure as a congressman, he became known for his national conservatism. Bolsonaro entered the 2018 presidential election, during which he began claiming to support economically liberal and pro-market policies. After surviving an assassination attempt on 6 September, he led in the 7 October first-round results and defeated Fernando Haddad in the 28 October runoff.

Bolsonaro focused on domestic affairs in his first months as president, dealing primarily with the fallout of the 2014 Brazilian economic crisis. The economy recovered slowly, while crime rates fell sharply during the first year. His government passed a major pension reform, granted formal autonomy to the Central Bank and privatized Eletrobras. It also reduced bureaucratic requirements for businesses and approved a new legal framework for sanitation that opened the sector to private investment. He rolled back protections for Indigenous groups in the Amazon rainforest and facilitated its deforestation. Bolsonaro's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil received significant criticism after he sought to downplay the pandemic and its effects, opposed quarantine measures, and dismissed two health ministers, while the death toll increased rapidly.