Jair Bolsonaro, who is standing before the voters in less than a month, nevertheless retains an irreducible base of supporters who adhere to his defense of ultra-conservative values ​​​​around the family, the fatherland or God, his anti-corruption diatribes or his detestation of the “Communism”.

But many analysts consider its balance sheet very negative.

“In terms of the environment, education, health, public safety or culture, it’s catastrophic,” said Anthony Pereira, Latin America specialist at Florida International University (USA).

First “we must deconstruct, undo many things”, warned the president shortly after his installation at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia in January 2019.

He kept his word.

This nostalgic for the dictatorship (1964-85) went on a crusade against “leftist ideology”. The Ministry of Culture has been abolished, funding has dried up, for science too.

The evangelical churches, whose weight has been further reinforced, have weighed even on the writing of school textbooks.

Diplomacy has taken an anti-globalization turn and Brazil no longer has many friends on the globe.

It was “a mandate to destroy what had been built since the return of democracy,” said Gaspard Estrada, Latin America specialist at Sciences Po.

The massive arming of Brazilians has taken the place of public safety policy: gun ownership permits have skyrocketed by 474% from 2018 to 2022, in one of the most violent countries in the world.

The deforestation of the Amazon, favored by the reduction of the budgets and the prerogatives of the surveillance organizations, exploded, on an annual average, by 75% under Mr. Bolsonaro, deaf to the protests of the international community.

Indigenous lands suffered 305 invasions in 2021 — 180% more than in 2018.

– Extreme tensions –

The second part of the mandate took place in a climate of extreme polarization and tension in which analyst Kevin Ivers of the DCI Group sees “a spiral into disorder, set in motion by any populist on the decline”.

Because the Covid-19 crisis has plunged the popularity of this fierce antivax. The denial of the head of state in the face of “a flu” responsible for 685,000 deaths has sparked dozens of requests for dismissal.

His supporters say he saved the economy from the worst by opposing lockdowns.

The far-right president has violently attacked the Supreme Court, its judges, and the reliability of the electoral system. “A deliberate strategy (to) tend towards an increasingly autocratic government”, considers political scientist Geraldo Monteiro, in his “Little anti-bolsonarist manual”.

If there is something positive in this mandate, “it is that the Brazilian institutions have worked to protect democracy, globally,” said Anthony Pereira.

In government, the ministers have waltzed: four have succeeded in Health as in Education, due to disagreements with the president or scandals.

Surviving the slaughter, the neoliberal Minister Paulo Guedes, for the Economy, nevertheless carried out a reform of pensions and a large series of privatizations. Major infrastructure projects have been launched.

Jair Bolsonaro treated the Army. He “has militarized the state apparatus by appointing more than 6,000 active or retired soldiers in the federal administration”, recalls Anthony Pereira.

For disinformation or for his management of the covid, Mr. Bolsonaro is the target of investigations and threatened with indictment in particular for “crime against humanity”.

Commentators have pointed out during the pandemic his lack of empathy for the suffering of the people, called to “stop whining”.

The ex-Army captain remained straight in his boots, preferring denial or the “alternative truth” to excuses, faithful to his image of “Trump of the tropics”.

“Hunger doesn’t really exist in Brazil,” he said, as 33.1 million Brazilians starve and fight over bones in dumpsters in Rio de Janeiro.

Latin America’s leading economy is recovering at the end of its mandate, but Bolsonaro’s Brazil still deplores double-digit inflation and 10 million unemployed.

Finally, his administration is “corruption-free”, he assures. However, its Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, has been involved in international timber trafficking. That of Education, Milton Ribeiro, was imprisoned briefly for corruption and influence peddling.

In terms of corruption “we have moved to a higher level”, says Gaspard Estrada.

“The Brazilian situation is dystopian, we are outside of reality”, concludes the analyst for whom Bolsonaro will have been “an anomaly in this democracy”.