Brazil’s Business Class Reconsiders Bet on Bolsonaro
But a polarized public may be in no mood for buttoned-down centrism, especially with the political rebirth of fiery ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Brazil may be quacking up again.
Photographer: Nelson Almeida/AFP via Getty Images
This time five years ago, a giant inflatable duck towered over the streets and public squares of Brazil’s biggest cities. Bulbous and yellow, the outsize bathtub toy and its accompanying slogan “No more paying for the duck” — roughly, No more holding the bag — became the symbol and tagline for a business community fed up with government ineptitude, public malfeasance and rent-seeking politicians (some of whom, admittedly, were in the executives’ pockets). It was an uncharacteristically political statement by a tight-lipped class that had had enough of politics as usual. Six months and a tsunami of street protests later, President Dilma Rousseff was gone, impeached for creative accounting, clearing the way for snarling outsider Jair Bolsonaro.
Will the rubber duck return? It’s complicated.