Objective/context:

This article aims to analyze the victory of Jair Bolsonaro and the rise of the new political right in Brazil, in which a “radical right” replaces a “moderate right,” and its implications for the future of democracy in the country.

Methodology:

Research focused on analyzing the strategy employed by the “moderate right” to gain power during two events considered key for the “changing of the guard” in the Brazilian right: the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and the right’s participation in Michel Temer’s unpopular government between 2016 and 2018. To explain the rupture with the party system in place for the last 25 years, structured around the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) and the Workers' Party (PT), we can point to the recent politicization of corruption scandals, notably the impacts of operation Lava Jato, on the country's three main parties.

Conclusions:

The conclusions show that the “changing of the guard” and the emergence of this new and radicalized right is an unexpected and unintended effect of the strategy adopted by the old and moderate right in the last five years marked by a redefinition of the party system in place since the transition to democracy and structured around the PT.

Originality:

Being a recent phenomenon, this is the first article that observes the purely political foundations of Bolsonaro’s victory and the rise of the new political right in the country, with emphasis on the two related actors who were determinant in the elections: the operators of the justice system and the moderate right’s strategies to counter the recent PT hegemony.