Bolsonaro ballot is big moment for a Brazilian rebrand 

BRAZIL goes to the polls this coming Sunday (Oct 2), but it is more than the key presidential candidates on the ballot. 

For after the controversies of the last few years, the election offers Brazil, as a nation, the opportunity to restore international trust and enter a new political era should President Jair Bolsonaro lose power. Bolsonaro – sometimes known as the “Tropical Trump” – has been a key part of the populism phenomenon sweeping the world in recent years. 

Steve Bannon, former aide to Donald Trump, said recently that “Bolsonaro is a great hero for all of us... as someone that has stood for sovereignty and really grassroots”. Both former US president Trump and Bolsonaro campaigned as outsiders, promoting a nationalist, anti-globalist agenda, including gun ownership, which in the case of Brazil has led civilians to own more weapons than the federal police.