ASSESSMENTS

In Brazil, Difficult Negotiations Await the Next President

Apr 25, 2018 | 18:10 GMT

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, shown here after a mass held in memory of his late wife Marisa Leticia on April 7, 2018, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva surrendered to police on April 7, 2018, to begin serving a 12-year prison sentence for corruption. His imprisonment has injected a large degree of uncertainty into Brazil's presidential race.

(VICTOR MORIYAMA/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • The arrest of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will force the Workers' Party to back the candidacy of another center-left candidate, such as Ciro Gomes, in the October presidential election.
  • Outsiders, including right-wing lawmaker Jair Bolsonaro, environmentalist Marina Silva and former Supreme Court President Joaquim Barbosa, will have the best chances of reaching a runoff in the presidential election.
  • Whoever wins Brazil's presidential election will have to contend with a highly fragmented Congress that will obstruct the victor in passing legislation.

The world's fifth largest country is set to head to the ballot box later this year for elections unlike any other. After more than two decades of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party and the Workers' Party largely alternating being in power, Brazil's presidential elections in October appear certain to catapult an outsider into power after a monumental corruption probe brought the country's traditional political parties to their knees. Parties that otherwise wield little power in the National Congress are racing to nominate their own candidates for the country's top job. But given the fractured nature of Brazil's Congress, winning the polls might prove to be a lot easier than actually governing the country....

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