On January 1, Jair Bolsonaro was inaugurated as Brazil’s 38th president. The task ahead of him was a veritable Rubik’s cube—a polarized and deeply unequal country, with a sluggish economy, infrastructure deficiencies, low education performance, and falling investments.
Mr. Bolsonaro rose from being a longtime backbencher to taking the highest office in the land by capitalizing on Brazilians’ frustrations, and gambling on an anti-establishment platform. Much like Donald Trump in the U.S., Mr. Bolsonaro gained popularity by promising to “drain the swamp,” and to...