by Jorge SVARTZMAN
Agence France Presse
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — Far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro promised in his victory speech Sunday to “change Brazil’s destiny,” after campaigning on a hardline law-and-order platform.
The former army captain, 63, campaigned under the slogan “Brazil above all, God above everyone.”
Here is a glance at his key policy proposals:
Economy
– Reduce public debt by 20 percent through a raft of privatizations and the sale of state properties.
– Create a parallel private pension system.
– Reduce the number of ministries: “The country will work better with fewer ministries.” His chief economic advisor, respected liberal economist Paulo Guedes, would lead an Economy super-ministry with responsibility for finance, planning and trade.
– Redistribute the “tax burden so that those who pay a lot pay less and those who evade and hide pay more.”
Security
– Loosen gun laws. “Guns are tools that can be used to kill or to save lives. It depends who’s using them.”
– Lower the age of criminal responsibility to 16.
– Classify squatting on or seizing private real estate as “terrorism.”
Corruption
– “We want a decent, different government from all those that have plunged us into an ethical, moral and budgetary crisis.”
Diplomacy
– “We are going to stop hailing murderous dictatorships” — said in reference to Venezuela — “and denigrating great democracies like the United States, Italy and Israel.”
Education
– “School programs and teaching methods need to change. There needs to be more mathematics, more sciences and Portuguese. Without indoctrination or early sexualization.”
Abortion
– His platform doesn’t mention it, but he has promised to veto any move to ease Brazil’s restrictive abortion laws. In the country, terminating pregnancies is permitted only in cases of rape, where the mother’s health is in danger, or severe brain malformation in the fetus.
LGBTI
– His program makes no mention of LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersexual) rights. Several of his statements were openly homophobic.
– During the campaign he tried to soften his tone. In his final campaign speech on Facebook, he said: “We went a free Brazil, without prejudice: white or black, homo or hetero…. Who knows, maybe I’m gay. If I were, what would be the problem?”
Environment
– Reflecting his backing from the powerful agro-industry lobby in Congress, Bolsonaro plans to merge the Agriculture and Environment ministries, and his manifesto makes no mention of deforestation or global warming.
“Let’s be clear: the future ministry will come from the productive sector,” he said recently.
© Agence France-Presse
