Brazil

Some have seen Brazil’s recent increased interest in the South Atlantic as also involving a growing interest in Antarctica.

The 7 October elections are the most uncertain presidential elections in Brazil in 20 years. It could not have been otherwise after four turbulent years, with the impeachment of the president, Dilma Rousseff, the corruption scandals, the arrest of Lula da Silva and the rise of a far-right outsider who has literally routed all his cards.

The BRICS group – composed by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – is one of the most eloquent symbols of a changing global order. Since its creation in 2006, the BRICS became a political platform for emerging powers to push for a more multipolar world. This became even more evident in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, as the BRICS began to demand specific reforms of institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The upcoming Brazilian elections are unprecedented in several different ways. On the one hand, never before has the country seen the degree of polarization that has come to define this presidential race.

Few days before the first round of the Brazilian presidential elections on October 7, it is highly risky to make any reasonable forecast about who will win a likely second round. For the time being the possible political and economic evolution after the elections seems to be unpredictable. But the good news is that since the return of democracy Brazil has always found a reasonable way to overcome all kinds of difficulties.

In 2014, the roof fell over Brazil’s head as Operation Car Wash (Operação Lava Jato) began to unfold. What began as an investigation into money laundering soon uncovered what we today know to be one of the biggest corruption scandals in world history.

The second round of the Brazilian presidential election on the 28th of October 2018 is likely to be between Fernando Haddad of the Workers’ Party and Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party. This is an unexpected result and not the choice that many Brazilians would have wished for.

La progressiva ascesa di importanza di potenze regionali nel mondo di oggi costituisce la conseguenza diretta della fine del bipolarismo ma anche della crescente globalizzazione di alcuni grandi elementi propulsivi della società contemporanea, come la finanza o l’innovazione tecnologica.