Bolsonaro’s Star Is in Decline, Ex-President Cardoso Says

  • Next Brazilian leader needs to reinvent nation’s path, he says
  • Two-term president, Cardoso’s plan eradicated hyperinflation

Fernando Henrique Cardoso in 2006.

Photographer: Stephen Hilger/Bloomberg

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Few people have a deeper understanding of Brazil’s ruthless politics than Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

The two-term president from the center-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party survived relatively unscathed in a job that saw most of his peers impeached, jailed or ostracized over the past three decades. In an hour-long video interview from his Sao Paulo home, the 89-year-old sociologist spoke candidly about the outlook for the nation he governed between 1995 and 2002.