Jair Bolsonaro fully embraces “old politics”

Elected president thanks to an anti-politics wave, Jair Bolsonaro promised to end one of the most vilified forms of coalition-making in Brazil: horse-trading politics. In an immensely fragmented parliament (30 parties are currently represented in Congress), governments simply cannot govern without forming broad, oft-heterogeneous coalitions. And the currency used in these negotiations is traditionally cabinet positions and other government offices. Parties would lend their support in Congress in exchange for the opportunity to oversee massive budgets which could enhance their electoral capital. The problem with that arrangement is that, often, parties would siphon public funds to finance their campaigns and their leaders’ lavish lifestyle — as anti-corruption probe Operation Car Wash revealed in recent years.

Less than halfway into his term, however, Mr. Bolsonaro tossed his campaign promises aside and is embracing these same practices — which he used to disparagingly call “old politics.” He has begun distributing second- and third-tier positions to parties of the so-called “Big Center” — a group of ideology-free parties ready to support the government du jour for the right price. So far, the offices offered by the president were attractive — such as control over the BRL 50-billion National Fund for Education Development — but were also low-profile. 

This changed on Wednesday, when the president announced a cabinet reshuffle, dismembering the Science and Technology Ministry and recreating the Communications Ministry, handing it to the politically promiscuous...