Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro is under siege

THERE ARE many ways to describe pork-barrel politics in Brazil. They include tomá lá dá cá (give and take), troca de favores (trading favours), corporativismo (corporatism) and velha política (old politics). In 2018, on the campaign trail, Jair Bolsonaro used these and far ruder insults to disparage his fellow politicians, especially ones from the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT), which governed from 2003 to 2016 and was roiled by two big corruption scandals. As president, he vowed to advance his agenda without distributing cargos (jobs) or emendas (amendments: ie, pork).

The first sign he had given up on this “new politics” came in mid-2020, when he formed an alliance with a bloc of self-serving parties known as the centrão (big centre) in order to shield himself from impeachment petitions, of which there are now 117. Centrão support is never free. A recent investigation by Estado de S. Paulo, a newspaper, showed that last year Mr Bolsonaro’s government forked over 20bn reais ($3.9bn) through emendas do relator, or “chairman’s pork”, a reference to the chairman of the budget committee. At least 3bn reais were funneled through the development ministry to congressmen to fund public works and purchase farm equipment at inflated prices, sometimes through companies owned by relatives.