Bolsonaro buying support in Congress, and it’s all legal

Earlier today, I addressed the changes in Brazil’s system of “coalition presidentialism” over the first year of the Jair Bolsonaro government. While the previous article was limited to the behavior of political parties within Congress and the votes of their respective members on legislative matters, now we will take a broader approach, analyzing Mr. Bolsonaro’s first year with regard to the relationship between the Executive and Legislative branches.

Brazil’s political system may be classed as presidential and multi-party. These two characteristics lead to a mode of operation of the government in Congress which involves the use of coalitions, seeing as the Executive branch would never be able to achieve a majority on its own, due to the vast number of parties. Therein originates the term “coalition presidentialism,” frequently used to define Brazilian politics on a national scale.

Since the redemocratization of 1988, coalition presidentialism has been the rule of the political land, being the method by which governments have promoted public policies and Congress has approved them. Contrary to some forecasts and analyses of political science, coalition presidentialism has borne significant fruit over Brazil’s last 32 years of democracy. Though we are still far from our ideal, it is undeniable that the country is in better shape than it was at the time of drafting the 1988 Constitution. 

Evidently, the system—or the misuse of it by hidden interests—has shown faults and some negative collateral effects. It should not be assumed, however, that this is purely down to the...