Bolsonaro’s legislative support hinges on budget handouts

Despite spending 28 years as a congressman, Jair Bolsonaro kicked off his presidency at odds with the Legislative branch — passing the lowest percentage of bills for any head of state fresh from an election. In what is typically a honeymoon period for new presidents, Congress only approved about 30 percent of the government’s proposals in 2019, according to researchers from the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Eventually, though, the president would get the hang of passing legislation — albeit not in the healthiest of ways.

Elected without a coalition, Mr. Bolsonaro joined forces with the “Big Center,” a federation of mildly conservative rentier parties with a sizable presence in Congress. With the influential bloc onside, he managed to whip some support by using so-called “rapporteur-designated grants,” opaque instruments that informally allow members of Congress to allocate chunks of the budget to projects in their constituencies. 

Funds from budgetary grants can help sway...