This week, Dominic Bowen speaks with Gustavo Ribeiro about the January 8th attack and the political situation in Brazil. They explore what, and who, fuelled and facilitated the January 8th insurrection, as well as political and social risks in Brazil, including corruption and misinformation.
Gustavo Ribeiro is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report, an independent media outlet in Brazil. He is an award-winning journalist, with extensive experience covering Brazilian politics and international affairs. Find out more about him on our Guests page.
Transcript of interview with Gustavo Ribeiro on The International Risk Podcast
00:05.55
Dominic Bowen
Hi, I’m Dominic the host of the international risk podcast today. We’re joined by Gustavo Ribeiro, co-founder and editor in chief of The Brazilian Report, an independent media outlet in Brazil.
00:23.34
Dominic Bowen
Gustavo is joining us today on the international risk podcast to discuss the political situation in Brazil focusing on the January 8th insurrection and what this means for the political environment in Brazil, the risks for people living in Brazil and the risks for neighbouring countries. Thanks, very much for joining us on the podcast today, Gustavo. So, Gustavo, on eighth of January violence in Brazil’s capital was preceded by a march in support of the Ex-President Bolsonaro from the army headquarters.
00:43.46
Gustavo Ribeiro
Thanks for having me.
00:55.37
Dominic Bowen
To the three powers plaza which houses the supreme court the presidential palace and congress the protesters we believe were far right? Bolsonaro’s supporters, who rejected the leftist president Lula da Silva and his presidential victory and no doubt some people listening to this are starting to wonder if I’m talking about the January Sixth insurrection in the US or the January Eight in Brazil, but we’ll come to that. But perhaps there some background first, why were supporters of Bolsonaro rejecting Lula’s electoral victory and why were they doing so strongly and so violently. What was it that fuelled these rioters in Brazil?
01:33.43
Gustavo Ribeiro
So, the January Eighth riots were the culmination of years long process of radicalizing a sizable portion of the Brazilian electorate. That starts I think we could say a decade ago when Brazil was hosting the confederations cup this sort of preparatory event for the 2014 world cup and then we have.
02:05.60
Gustavo Ribeiro
Ah, it’s a bit like that chaos theory that the wings of a butterfly can unleash this a series of events that will accommodate in a typhoon across the world. It’s happened a little bit like be if you think about it because there was a very small protest against the bump of bus fares in the city of Sao Paulo, that protest was violently repressed by the Sao Paulo police and then it sparked more protests first in support of that original demonstration. And then it became a vehicle for Brazilians to vent their grievances and God knows we have a lot of reasons to complain about government in Brazil. They were complaining about corruption. They were complaining about the fact that Brazil has, high taxes and poor return in terms of public services and then became the sort of anti-everything wave of protests. After this, we saw violent demonstrations and we started to see this sort of denial of politics itself and politicians never enjoyed a great reputation in Brazil but after that it became sort of a synonymous.
03:36.15
Gustavo Ribeiro
With corruption, with being a crook if you are a politician the crisis got even worse. In 2016, Brazil was growing more and more. We had this very controversial impeachment process against centre left President Dilma Rousseff. In 2018 we saw the rise of the far right with Jair Bolsonaro, who had built his entire political platform on social media and pretty much flew under the radar of big media in Brazil of even political parties. A lot of people in the political establishment and media thought that 2018 would be business as usual, a TV campaign would be the key determining factor in who voters would pick. Usually until that point if you had more airtime on TV and radio you would usually fare better. Bolsonaro had just mere seconds but due to his very savvy social media presence he ended up almost winning it outright in the first round and then by a landslide in the runoff. We saw the use of public funds to fuel what was already becoming a big problem in Brazil, which is misinformation and the government was through.
05:10.28
Gustavo Ribeiro
Paying money in ads for websites associated with misinformation and these websites. With Bolsonaro being the misinformation chief, he started planting this idea that the Brazilian Voting system is rigged. Brazil has a 100 % electronic voting system since the late 90s and in almost thirty years the system has never faced credible fraud allegations. Bolsonaro, even if he publicly said he has no proof of what he’s saying, he managed to get a big chunk of the electorate to believe that actually the system is not safe and that any hacker can get into it and change the ballots. Even in the elections he won and he said that he would have won by larger margins if there wasn’t this vast conspiracy against him, so he he’s been banging that drum consistently over the past few years. He has pitted his supporters against democratic institutions. Truth be told, however, these institutions are very flawed and in some of the means to protect democracy from Bolsonaro’s anti-democratic urges are questionable.
06:42.26
Gustavo Ribeiro
There were a lot of things that contributed to creating this cultural cauldron that made millions and millions of Brazilians to believe there is indeed a vast conspiracy between politicians. When Lula won, he won by the slightest margin ever recorded in Brazilian democratic elections, less than 2 percentage points. Bolsonaro’s supporters thought this is evidence that this election was stolen and that we need to do something. So, this movement is made up of a lot of dishonest people planting false ideas into voter’s heads, but also there are a lot of vulnerable people who ended up believing in what was being planted. If you try to put yourself in their shoes and you think there is a vast conspiracy destroying your country and subverting democracy, one will do whatever it takes. That was the mentality of a lot of people, who were manipulated into charging against democratic symbols.
08:08.81
Dominic Bowen
There were warning signs that an attack would take place in Brazil, similar to what we saw in the US on their own sixth of January attacks back in 2021 against the US Capitol. I think in your own media outlet you caution several times that this could actually happen. Now, we’re aware and we’ve even discussed some of these factors that facilitated the attack, including Bolsonaro’s rhetoric and distrust of Brazil’s democratic institutions and him pitting supporters against democratic institutions. There was also a suspicious lack of security forces on the ground when the attacks happened. Can you tell us a bit more about these factors that actually facilitated the insurrection on the day?
08:51.42
Gustavo Ribeiro
Since the election happened, Bolsonaro’s supporters have tried to create chaos in the country and in their mind by creating chaos, they would allow Bolsonaro to put the country under a state of emergency and prevent transition of power from happening. That didn’t happen, but immediately after the election results were proclaimed we saw attempts to block federal roadways and in Brazil. Two thirds of cargo is moved through trucks, so if you block highways you essentially put the economy in a chokehold. After this, they started to do to camp around army garrisons and urge the military to stage a coup d’état, now this is illegal; in Brazil freedom of expression is not this absolute concept as is in the US. There are a lot of things you cannot say for instance, you cannot use racial slurs to talk about someone and you cannot call for a coup d’état; that is a crime. They were blatantly committing crimes and the army allowed them to continue camping around their garrisons. The perimeter outside of army sites is under the jurisdiction of the armed forces.
10:23.97
Gustavo Ribeiro
The armed forces should have removed them. The armed forces also echoed Bolsonaro’s rhetoric against the voting system. In many ways we could say they condoned this cause for a coup d’état. When people were being bused into Brazil, the head of security forces in the capital – who by coincidence was Bolsonaro’s former justice minister- travels to Florida. They put very few policemen to blockade what had every sign that it would derail into a violent demonstration. It’s important for people who don’t know Brasilia to know that this capital was built in the 50s and inaugurated in the 60s. One of the reasons for Brasilia existing is to prevent the sort of scenes we saw in on January the eighth, it is in the middle of nowhere and it is thousands of kilometres away from Brazil’s biggest centres. You have these huge open spaces that allows police to master crowds and of protect public buildings and in the past, we have seen police forces very easily dominating protesters.
12:00.30
Gustavo Ribeiro
So, the fact that they were so easily overwhelmed by the hordes of far-right radicals and the fact that there were so few officers raised more than a few eyebrows. The police started acting after the congress building had been stormed and was being trashed, after the Supreme court was being trashed and after the Presidential Palace was being trashed. Footage shows that army officers who are responsible for the presidential security in the Palace were seen protecting the rioters. We also saw that police officers were taking selfies while people were invading public buildings. So, it’s very hard not to point a finger to police forces. In best case scenario, there was grave negligence in the mission and worst case scenario they actively condoned it.
13:11.55
Dominic Bowen
Gustavo, you mentioned misinformation and the creation of false narratives against electoral processes within Brazil. Misinformation is a very large risk that requires a multifaceted response by both private and public actors to be successful and I think misinformation highlights the importance of independent news outlets like The Brazilian Report. As a news editor what role, do you believe independent media has in combating misinformation.
13:44.50
Gustavo Ribeiro
That’s a tough question because I think independent media has the role to try to debunk these false narratives and actually make fact checked information available.
14:15.58
Gustavo Ribeiro
With how social media works and how this encrypted messaging app works I think sometimes the fight against misinformation a very frustrating effort. It’s just like to use an expression and we have in Brazil is just like trying to dry out a melting ice cube. You try doing it and seconds later everything you did is undone, right? Especially in the country as Brazil where this is not a country where media culture is that developed. Partly, the media is to be blamed because of the way several types of communities have been treated in the press but the matter of fact is brazil still a country with poor educational levels, with poor access to information and the fact that people rely so much on these encrypted messaging apps makes everything more difficult because if someone you know shares a piece of information with you, you’re much more prone to believe in that piece of information. It becomes untraceable. You cannot see how many people are affected by one single piece of content and platforms don’t do anything to that.
15:45.17
Dominic Bowen
And so based on that. What do you think the key responses are? What should be the main mitigation actions to battle this risk of misinformation?
15:54.50
Gustavo Ribeiro
I mean if I had that question I would be earning millions of dollars in consultancy fees. But what I can say is that the world should be looking at Brazil right now because I think Brazil offers a very interesting case study of the effects of this information but also how to deal with it because we don’t have that absolute concept of freedom, of speech that the US have. We are seeing a very strong response from the court especially the supreme court there are multiple inquiries into misinformation rings and following the January Eighth riots we have seen federal authorities tapping up their response.
16:50.92
Gustavo Ribeiro
I think there is an argument to be made that sometimes this response uses highly questionable methods. We have Brazil’s chief electoral justice who is also a supreme court justice and who is overseeing these processes, these cases of misinformation, who are being often criticized for overreaching his mandates and essentially crossing the line between curbing misinformation and censoring people.
17:34.58
Dominic Bowen
I mean you are certainly correct that that Brazil is an extremely interesting case study. It is also a deeply divided country as you said the current president won by the slimmest of margins. Do you think that we’re going to see Bolsonarism live on and do you think there’s certain things that we should be monitoring when it comes to to risks to democracy by other hardliners.
18:03.44
Gustavo Ribeiro
I wouldn’t say necessarily that Bolsonarism will live on. I would say that a lot of the pillars of Bolsonarism will, this challenge against institutions and so on so forth. If Bolsonaro as a leader of that far right will remain as important as he is today I think will largely depend on the successes or failures of the Lula Administration. Brazil is still a country of deep economic inequality. A lot of voters make their electoral choices based on bread and butter issues and that’s why Lula became the phenomenon he became because during his administration; Brazil saw unparalleled economic prosperity largely in part to the commodities boom of the two thousands.
18:52.70
Gustavo Ribeiro
We had a decade of nearly no growth in the 2010 s that is also one of the reasons I think why Brazil has become so radicalized and so polarized because when Lula left office in 2010 he was approved by 82% of people. It doesn’t matter what he does now, I don’t believe he would ever reach this kind of approval ratings again because of how divided we are and how fragmented society has become, in large part due to social media and how we are confined in our own echo chambers. But, if he manages to deliver social growth economic growth, I would assume that it will weaken Bolsonaro a lot as an alternative to Lula. Maybe that far right would be led by another character.
20:08.23
Gustavo Ribeiro
Incumbencies in Brazil is a very strong thing. With Bolsonaro, we can say that his administration was terrible in many ways and still he almost won because of how much you can do with the power of the pen. If you hold the strings of the public first in a country where so many millions depend on federal aid to not to make ends meet, to have their basic needs met that’s a strong power.
20:37.70
Dominic Bowen
There’s a significant risk that President Lula will not be seen as a legitimate leader by much of the population in Brazil. So, what does this mean for reducing some of the most significant risks in Brazil including corruption inequality and loss of faith in government institutions.
20:56.69
Gustavo Ribeiro
I think that can be mitigated through economic successes if his administration delivers economic result. In that point I think in Brazil the bottom line is the economy growing? Are people perceiving that their lives are improving under your administration and if so then everything becomes easier right? Dilma Rousseff, the first years of her presidency which started in 2011 she was the most the highest approved president for the first 2 or 3 years because Brazil were still enjoying the end of that growth period. After this, she became approved by less than 10 percent of the population, just months after winning re-election because Brazil had plunged into an economic recession. Ultimately, I think that it all comes down to are people’s economic conditions getting better… Or worse?
22:06.41
Dominic Bowen
I think that’s valid in in so many democracies around the world. Sadly, the IMF just recently downgraded the expected growth for Brazil and many other Latin American countries for 2023, so the economic prospects are not looking fantastic. Combined with that, Brazil has a longstanding problem with corruption at all levels of government and this continues to be a major social and political risk in the country today. This includes the high-profile corruption scandals involving politicians and public officials as well as more widespread issues with bribery and embezzlement across the government, even in private industry. Is the new government better placed to address corruption in Brazil and are they likely to have successes that the people will experience?
22:57.33
Gustavo Ribeiro
It is funny this question because the workers party was for decades the anticorruption party and then it became the government that was the centre of so many corruption scandals. In operation car wash which was a massive anti-graph operation that lasted for years and that briefly puts Lula in jail. The worker’s party has done a lot to discredit this sort of anticorruption investigation and truth be told operation car wash was extremely flawed. I would say that they went out of bounds on many occasions that they pulled a hit job against Lula, but they unveiled how deeply rooted corruption is in the government. I wouldn’t say that this government is placed to reduce corruption. I would say that it will not be as openly institutionalized as it was during the Bolsonaro years. The labour minister lost his job during the Dilma Rousseff administration because his
24:27.66
Gustavo Ribeiro
office was accused of getting bribes from NGOs that had dealings with the government. I remember because I was the reporter who did the first stories when I used to work with a magazine with a weekly magazine in Brazil. He is in the cabinet and he has a history with corruption.
25:01.95
Gustavo Ribeiro
Also Brazil’s house speaker when the election was approaching, said that Brazilians would have to choose between the mensalão and the secret budget. So the mensalão is a system that was used during the Lula administration in which the government was paying monthly stipends to lawmakers in order to whip a congressional majority. Secret budget was something that the Bolsonaro administration used. A system of opaque budgetary grants that allowed a lot of lawmakers to pour money into their constituencies. That money was ah often used for dummy contracts politicians would pocket a lot of the money. So essentially what the house speaker said quite openly is that the relationship between the executive and legislative branches first supposes some level of corruption. He was saying that either it was Lula and his monthly bribes bribery scheme or Bolsonaro’s budgetary grant scheme, but he never offered option c which is to try to things above board.
26:16.40
Dominic Bowen
Brazil has one of the highest crime rates in the world with high levels of violent crime including murder and assault. This is a major concern for citizens and everyone living in Brazil, particularly those living in urban areas. The crime is often linked to issues, not surprisingly, but such as poverty inequality and lack of effective law enforcement. For Brazil to attract foreign investment there needs to be confidence in crime reduction and prevention activities as well as confidence that the workforces and resources will be safe. So, what’s needed to reduce the risks of crime and violence in Brazil? And, how can brazil restore international confidence in their risk mitigation activities?
27:00.10
Gustavo Ribeiro
Public security experts say that Brazil must invest a lot in intelligence, and we have seen progress over the past few years. We have seen steep reduction in murders, although they still sky high, they used to be much worse. Part of that is not necessarily good news, in that some organized crime organizations are becoming monopolies in several regions which reduces conflicts between different groups and thus reducing the number of murders. But I also would say that a reform in how police forces work is something that is often pointed out by experts because we have highly militarized police force in Brazil. We have the military police which would be a crime prevention police and then what do we call the civil police, they would be the detectives. They’re not the same force. There’s a lot of rivalry between them which means that often when we talk about fighting crime the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing so that creates a lot of problems and a lot of intelligence gaps.
28:33.45
Gustavo Ribeiro
But I also think that a lot of it passes through inclusive policies in terms of sanitation, in terms of housing, in terms of offering people better conditions and something that we also have then a lot of advances since Brazil became a democracy. Maybe it’s my Brazilian bias, but I think sometimes
29:10.58
Gustavo Ribeiro
Brazil is unfairly seen as this pit for problems. If you think about the fact that Brazil only exists as a country for 200 years and that thirty five years ago we’re still a dictatorship. The strides we have made have been quite significant. I don’t think anyone would say we are in the point where we should be but I think there are a lot of strides that have been made over the past decades.
29:44.79
Dominic Bowen
Certainly, and Brazil remains one of the world’s largest economies but there are issues like poverty and inequality that remain major social and political risks. With so many Brazilians continuing to live in poverty with inadequate access to basic services including quality education healthcare and housing. Additionally, you know income inequality is high with a significant portion of the population living in poverty whilst the small group of elites holds most of the wealth. In your reporting you speak to a lot of people across Brazil’s society what policies would people like to see this new government initiate in order to reduce the risks of poverty and inequality?
30:25.10
Gustavo Ribeiro
Well, I think that for once we see that a tax reform is being agreed upon and this is a major need because it impacts government funding it. It is also an equality driver because in Brazil most of our taxes are on consumption which is a very regressive way to tax a population. It disproportionately affects poor people while income taxes and inheritance taxes are much less progressive in the way that we tax people so that also impacts a lot of issues. Also, we have a very byzantine tax code that makes doing business hard, that makes entrepreneurship hard and Brazil is a country that has a lot of entrepreneurs. Not necessarily by choice sometimes by necessity but still sometimes it’s very hard and I mean as a business owner in Brazil I can say doing things above board – as you should – it takes a lot of time. In terms of the hours you have to dedicate to just doing your taxes and filling up forms and so on so forth. I think I think that we are also seeing progress in terms of making the economy more rational.
32:00.26
Gustavo Ribeiro
For once there is support from different economic lobbies to push for a tax reform. I’m thirty six years old and ever since I remember we talk about a tax reform in Brazil and didn’t say it’s urgent and we have to do one now and it’s been like 30 years and now apparently there is political will around it. I think that can help a lot in terms of stimulating the business environment allowing a lot of people from poorer classes to become entrepreneurs in the form of economy which is important as well. There’s reason to be cautiously hopeful.
32:51.61
Dominic Bowen
And there certainly is. There’s certainly lots of things to be hopeful for and I think there remains a lot of opportunities in Brazil but I have to ask the question that I ask all of our guests Gustavo and what are the most significant risks that concern you and they could either be at the strategic level or at the community level or at a very personal level that concern you in your family or people that you’re speaking with like what are the sort of things that pop up at the dinner table when you’re catching up with friends and family?
33:32.49
Gustavo Ribeiro
I think a big risk for Brazil is missing the now of technological evolution. I think this is a country that people are very innovative in the way of trying to create creative solutions for dealing with their problems. But we’re not nearly as innovative as we need in terms of like talking about the economy and talking about technology. I think that Brazil risks become like this huge farm where agribusiness becomes the single economic driver. We’re seeing Brazil industrializing and the problem is agribusiness in Brazil is becoming more and more modern which means it requires fewer and fewer factory workers.
34:24.97
Gustavo Ribeiro
Factory jobs are the ones with the highest quality in terms of salary social security protections and we’re losing those. We’re bleeding factory jobs, we have an economy that remains highly isolated. But we don’t use our isolation smartly. We have a business class in Brazil that I often see as predatory. They just want protectionism to charge hefty prices for subpar product.
35:04.28
Gustavo Ribeiro
They want barriers not necessarily to fill the gap between them and international competitors. But just because we’re not going to compete with foreign products, let’s just have our market reserve and so I think that a major risk. I think for our economy that we have such a short-sighted business class in Brazil, and I think every country mirrors their elites, right? Brazil’s elite is an elite that has very little regard for the country that often mimics what people are doing in Europe and in the US without much critical spirits that sometimes is proud of not knowing Brazil very well. I think that like a lot of people are proud that they know we were better than some parts of Brazil which I think is ludicrous. I think that is a risk that the short-sightedness of people who have the means to promote innovation and to promote a lot of the changes that we need.
36:17.25
Dominic Bowen
That’s very interesting. That’s the environment and that’s what I think that so many of our listeners are really keen to hear to hear: what Brazilians are thinking in Brazil about the situation in Brazil.
36:17.35
Gustavo Ribeiro
I’m sorry I’m not very known for my optimism.
36:34.98
Dominic Bowen
There is a lot of uncertainty. There are a lot of risks. I think most of us agree that Brazil still presents massive opportunities. Massive opportunities for the citizens of Brazil but also for international companies and neighbouring countries that that want to invest and support and grow with Brazil. But that requires eyes to be wide open. It requires people to really understand the risk environment before they go in and you know requires the population within Brazil to be engaging in a fact-based discussion, that’s not based on misinformation. I think it’s great to get your perspective; you are an editor in chief of a main newspaper and I think it’s great to get your perspectives. But thanks very I really appreciate you coming on the international risk podcast today Gustavo. Well, that was a great conversation.
37:17.80
Gustavo Ribeiro
Okay. My pleasure anytime.
37:31.40
Dominic Bowen
With Gustavo Ribeiro, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report. I really appreciated hearing his insights on the political and risk situation in Brazil as well as some of the opportunities too. Thanks for listening today your positive reviews on the international with podcast and subscribing to future. Downloads is critical for our success I’m Dominic Bowen and we’ll speak again next week.