Since the first round of the Brazilian presidential election in October, the world – and what we now know is a minority of voting Brazilians – looked on aghast at the prospect of Jair Bolsonaro ruling 210 million people. Last Sunday it came to pass, with Bolsonaro defeating his opponent Fernando Haddad with 55% of the vote. Bolsonaro joins a growing list of demagogues with their hands on the global levers of power, and it was no surprise that among the first of those to call and congratulate the seven-term congressman “outsider” were Rodrigo Duterte, Matteo Salvini and Donald Trump. Our cover story this week includes Simon Tisdall’s analysis of why Brazil turned out for a man who once announced that “elections won’t change anything”. We also look at what Bolsonaro’s policies are likely to mean in practice and why his rhetoric has Brazil’s LGBT community already living in fear.
Across America many citizens are also living in fear thanks to the vicious rhetoric of their president. Last week was one of the bleakest yet of the Trump era. It began with a series of pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats and Trump opponents and ended with the murder of 11 Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Next Tuesday, Americans head to the polls for a midterm election that even Trump acknowledges is a referendum on his leadership. As David Smith reports from Washington DC, this noxious electoral era could be far from over.
Another humbling result for her Christian Democrats in state elections marked the beginning of the end for Angela Merkel. The German leader announced on Monday, followed elections in Hesse, that she would not be seeking re-election as CDU leader and that this term as chancellor, her fourth, would be her last. We consider what a post-Merkel Europe will look like and ask who might take over her role as the bloc’s de facto leader.
On 15 October, the leader of the UK’s House of Commons released a report on bullying in the halls of Westminster. The result led for calls for Commons speaker, John Bercow, to bring forward his planned resignation. In a fascinating report by former parliamentary staffer Josh Jacobs, we speak to the staff – and former staff – of members of parliament who detail the often grim realities of working for British legislators. Those indignities include anything from incubating eggs for an MP’s pet chickens to dealing with streams of abusive texts in the middle of the night.
We also have the best of the week’s culture – from Peanuts to Bohemian Rhapsody – plus columns by Jonathan Freedland and Marina Hyde, book reviews and Nobel peace prize laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on the lessons Liberia learned from the Ebola outbreak.
