Bolsonaro’s defeat ‘ends Brazil’s pariah status’ in science

The narrow electoral defeat of president Jair Bolsonaro signals the start of a period of recovery for Brazil’s universities and scientific community but will not rid the sector of economic hardship and attacks from the right, academics in the country have said.

The populist leader lost the presidential election by nearly 2 percentage points in the second round of voting to former president Luiz Inácio da Silva – known as Lula – bringing an end to his period in power after just one term.

Brazil will no longer be seen as a “pariah” state thanks to the result, according to Luiz Davidovich, emeritus professor of physics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and former president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.

He blamed Mr Bolsonaro for defunding the country’s public universities and fostering an anti-science rhetoric, but was confident things would change under Lula, pointing out that international funders had already signalled their intention to restore support for scientific research in the country just days after the poll.  

“Next year it will be very difficult – there will not be much money for anything else except trying to fix the immediate situation. The problem of hunger has become really dramatic,” he said.

“But I would imagine some signal will be made towards science and education, knowing Lula. I’m not sure if he will be able to do that but I think he wants to do it.”

Professor Davidovich said there was a real risk some federal universities could go bankrupt after Mr Bolsonaro again cut their budgets in the week before the election.

“They now lack money for paying electricity and water bills. This urgently needs to be addressed,” he said.

Professor Davidovich also called for funding to be restored to bodies such as the national fund for the development of science and technology, which was severely cut back by the present government.

But such moves would require overturning decisions made by Mr Bolsonaro and Lula now faces a hostile National Congress made up of the outgoing president’s supporters.

Jesse Levine, senior advocacy officer at Scholars at Risk – who have tracked the significant drop in institutional autonomy under Mr Bolsonaro using the Academic Freedom Index compiled by University of Gothenburg researchers – said the “million-dollar question” was how processes put in place by the outgoing president will continue to affect the country after his exit.

“One of the big issues over the course of Bolsonaro’s presidency was placing his allies in positions of power at Brazilian universities,” he said.

“To me, the big question is to what extent does a politics of demonising universities and higher education – using it as a populist target – survive Bolsonaro’s defeat and to what extent are there people in positions of power who can continue to realise this politics.”

Marcelo Knobel, professor of physics and former rector at the University of Campinas (Unicamp), said the demonstrations staged by Mr Bolsonaro’s supporters in the wake of the defeat – including blocking roads – were a microcosm of the issues Lula will face in his third term as president.

“There is a really radical part of the society against him. It will be a difficult task to unite the country again and move forward,” he said.

Professor Knobel said he was hopeful but pessimistic for the future funding of universities.

“We don’t know the damage that has been done and how much time it will take to heal it. There are big questions marks over what will happen now.”

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com