Brazil Utopia: a parallel universe
Today I want to time travel and dream. My destination is a parallel universe where Brazil enacted policies and elected leaders who reduced corruption in the second half of the 20th century.
Brazil is in reality one of the most persistently corrupt countries in the world, and in just a few days as of this writing, Brazilians will go to the polls to vote for president. The candidates include Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, known simply as Lula, who spent time in prison in 2018 after a corruption conviction. He is running against sitting President Jair Bolsonaro, who campaigned against corruption but seems to have bought millions of dollars in real estate over the years, all paid for in cash by him and his three sons. There are several other candidates, but Lula and Bolsonaro are the only ones with enough support to be reasonably expected to win.
I open the curtain to another world, in the year 2022. An election is set to take place in just a few days. Brazil’s electronic voting system is widely respected and emulated across the globe. Elections take place on the first Monday in October, designated as a national holiday. There are five candidates for president; all campaigns are given equal funding from the state as private financing is forbidden by law. Brazil was the first country to establish rank-choice voting for all elections, and there will likely be a runoff in November. Fringe candidates are unable to garner adequate support to win outright, and they end up further marginalized in runoffs.
Brazil’s metamorphosis began in 1950, when the newly minted socialist party, PSB, was on the ballot for the first time. Their candidate, João Mangabeira, came out of nowhere and won the presidency. Mangabeira was a brilliant lawyer and defender of human rights and had been a vocal opponent of Brazil’s Estado Novo dictatorship under then-president Getúlio Vargas from 1937 to 1945. He spent 15 months in prison in the mid-1930s because of his opposition to the Vargas regime’s illiberal policies. He said in 1936, “I’d rather be imprisoned by the dictatorship than be free because I agreed with it.”
The Mangabeira presidency ushered in an array of groundbreaking policies that put the needs of the population first. Marshalling Brazil’s vast natural resources enabled the country to provide universal health care, access to education, sanitation and clean water to even the most far-flung areas. Brazil’s spectacular city skylines are not marred by the kind of shantytowns, called favelas in Portuguese, that are commonly found in middle- and lower-income countries.
Over the years, legislation limited the ability to engage in corrupt practices and provided stiff penalties for those who break the law. Although corruption exists, Brazil was ranked fourth in the 2021 International Corruption Perceptions Index, tied with Norway for the distinction.
Brazil was a founding member of the Organization for Economic and Social Development, and its economy is considered the strongest in the world. Brazil eclipsed the United States on a number of economic and progress indicators in 2010 and is ranked ahead of every other major economy on quality of life and opportunity measures.
Brazil has been a beacon of hope in the fight against global warming, and has set a global example with their stewardship of the Amazon basin and its resources, calling this treasure “the lungs of the planet.” Their innovative policies implemented widespread solar and wind power, and they enacted legislation outlawing the combustion engine by 2030. Delegations from countries around the world regularly visit Brazil to learn from its innovation and remarkable economic success despite providing rich human resources to every one of its citizens.
Brazil has maintained their historically liberal immigration policies despite a huge increase in the number of applicants for residency. The US presidential election in 2016 resulted in an influx of American asylum seekers to Brazil, further weakening the already troubled US economy. When asked by a reporter if these policies were sustainable, Brazil’s President Marielle Franco observed, “Our people are what make us great. The richness and diversity of other cultures strengthens our own. We are a nation of immigrants.”
Photo by Jessica Anderson on Unsplash