Bolsonaro leaves disastrous legacy as term comes to an end

Jair Bolsonaro, the first Brazilian president to lose a re-election vote, left office yesterday. For his successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, he will leave behind a disastrous legacy in several areas. For example, a slow-growing economy, a loss in international standing, and one of the world’s highest Covid mortality rates.

The president and his allies worked to undermine democracy in Brazil and even formally challenged the election results. His administration institutionalized the so-called “secret budget” — a system of opaque budgetary grants that give lawmakers influence over the federal purse as a reward for legislative support.

And Congress has figured out ways around a recent Supreme Court decision declaring the secret budget unconstitutional.

In three areas, however, the disaster of the Bolsonaro administration is more visible and measurable: deforestation, education, and vaccination.

Spiraling deforestation

Deforestation in the Amazon increased in the first three years of the Bolsonaro administration. While it was reduced in the period from July 2021 to June 2022, it was still larger than in any 12-month stint in the 2009-2019 period.

Recent official data showed that deforestation increased by almost 60 percent during the Bolsonaro years in relation to the yearly average of 2015-2018, in which Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer were presidents.

Indeed, in April 2021, the Bolsonaro administration officially presented an environmental plan that allowed deforestation to increase by up to 15 percent — and it even fell short of that goal.

Before and during office, Mr. Bolsonaro was vocally friendly to poachers and illegal mining in the Amazon. He has repeatedly said the rainforest contains “the entire periodic table” of elements, suggesting that they should be profited from. 

In March, his House whip, Congressman Ricardo Barros, sought to fast-track a bill that would allow mining on indigenous lands. The move was successful, but the bill stalled after...