Brazilian Flávio Bolsonaro has joined the chorus of Latin American politicians, mostly right-wing, but not only, who look with envy at El Salvador in terms of public security and feel inspired by Bukele’s recipe to drastically reduce violence. Senator Bolsonaro, the main rival of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the upcoming elections, met this Sunday with a Bukele minister in São Paulo.
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After the meeting, the Brazilian stated that “Brazil arrests little, it should arrest more, we don’t have more only because the legislation is weak.” He overlooked the fact that his country has almost a million people deprived of liberty, including his father, a prison population only surpassed in absolute numbers by the United States and China. In relative terms, El Salvador is among the top positions. Candidate Bolsonaro promised half a million new prison places if he wins in October.
Public security is once again the issue that most concerns the Brazilian electorate on the eve of elections. 35% of those surveyed place it as their first or second concern. It is followed by healthcare and corruption. One of the issues that most worries the population of large cities is cellphone theft. For this reason, Senator Bolsonaro proposes to toughen penalties to punish mobile phone and store thieves with eight years in prison.
The candidate, and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, stated after meeting with the Salvadoran Minister of Justice and Public Security, Gustavo Villatoro, at a hotel in São Paulo that Bukele and he “have implemented one of the largest and most effective sovereignty recoveries and have returned public security to the Salvadoran people.” He omitted the state of exception and the serious human rights violations that have resulted from it, including mass incarceration.
One of the Salvadoran’s recommendations to Bolsonarism is to secure a large bench in the parliamentary chambers to be able to approve the laws or legislative reforms that applying Bukele’s recipe requires.
Bolsonaro has also promised to declare “narco-terrorists” from the main Brazilian criminal groups as terrorists, in line with the Donald Trump Administration, which last May included the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV) on its terrorist list.
The strongest candidate of the divided right bets heavily on the issue of public security in his electoral campaign. Besides advocating for tougher prison sentences, he wants to end what he considers a revolving door. The one that, according to him, causes criminals to be arrested by the police, sent to prison, and then released by judges.
At the meeting with Minister Villatoro, Bolsonaro was accompanied by the number two of his candidacy, a former public security secretary of São Paulo, who is a military police officer, and a familiar figure to Brazilians: Judge Sérgio Moro, who signed the first prison sentence against Lula, later served as Minister of Justice under Bolsonaro Sr. before a high-profile split with him. Moro, elected senator in 2022, is running for governor of the State of Paraná for the Bolsonaro party, the Liberal Party.
