In this week’s issue: The most important facts of the week. What do Brazilians expect from President Bolsonaro?
The week in review
- New president. President Jair Bolsonaro took office on January 1, inaugurating his four-year term. He gave two speeches, one extending an olive branch to Congress, and another filled with attacks on “political correctness” and his opponents. Mr. Bolsonaro’s aggressive campaign antics should be the rule rather than the exception during his presidency.
- Hard-liners. Besides Mr. Bolsonaro, 27 governors took office
on the New Year, too. And a big chunk of them took their oath of office promising severe austerity measures and tough-on-crime approaches. None, however, was harder than Rio’s new governor, Wilson Witzel, who promised shoot-to-kill policing tactics and called for a local version of Guantanamo Bay Prison, considered by Amnesty International as a “cesspool of human rights abuses.”
- Violence spree. Justice Minister Sérgio Moro sent 300 National Security Force troops to the state of Ceará, after the state saw three days of a violence spree caused by the PCC, the country’s most powerful criminal organization. The attacks were perpetrated after the local government promised to split up prisoners from the...