Brazil will start the year with a new President. Jair Messias Bolsonaro has been elected President of Brazil. The far-right candidate received over 55 percent of the valid votes. His promise to combat crime and corruption, following a series of scandals involving politicians from the party that governed Brazil for nearly 15 years, garnered massive support.
Who is Jair Bolsonaro?
Born on March 21, 1955, in the small town of Glicério, in the 
State of São Paulo, Jair Messias Bolsonaro graduated from the Military Academy of Agulhas Negras in 1977. He ran for the mayoralty of Rio de Janeiro in 1988 and was elected as a city councilor.
In 1990, two years after his election, he won the first of his seven consecutive terms as a Federal Deputy. In 2014, he became the most voted candidate in the 
race for the Chamber of Deputies, with 464,565 votes, according to data from the Superior Electoral Court.
In the current legislature, Bolsonaro is a member of the Foreign Relations and National Defense Commission, an Alternate of the Foreign Relations and National Defense Commission, and an Alternate of the Public Security and Organized Crime Combat Commission.
During his terms, he stood out for defending the rights of active military personnel and veterans, fought for
greater discipline in educational institutions, for the reduction of the age of criminal responsibility, for the right of citizens to bear arms and for the right to self-defense, and for Christian values and the traditional family.
Jair is the father of Flávio Bolsonaro, Carlos Bolsonaro, and Eduardo Bolsonaro, respectively an elected Senator for the State of Rio de Janeiro, a City Councilor of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro, and an elected Federal Deputy for the State of São Paulo, with the latter obtaining a second term with the second highest vote count 
in the country — 1.8 million votes.
The Election
The 2018 election is historic because it was marked by polarization, a flood of messages on social media, fake news, and 
especially by the overwhelming and unprecedented popular campaign, which culminated in the victory of the 38th President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Jair Messias Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro won over Brazilians by promising to “break the system” and disrupt the status quo after tumultuous years. Brazil has suffered a deep recession since 2016. This economic crisis was accompanied by political turmoil, with a massive corruption scandal unfolding at the highest levels of government and business, leaving few prominent leaders 
unscathed.
Moreover, the rise in violent crime left some voters yearning for order and security, which Bolsonaro — a former military officer — promised to deliver.
Considering himself an outsider, Bolsonaro chose ministers also regarded as outsiders:
• Agriculture: Tereza Cristina, Federal Deputy
• Central Bank: Roberto Campos Neto, current director and head of the Treasury at Santander Brazil.
• Civil House: Onyx Lorenzoni, Federal Deputy
• Science and Technology: Marcos Pontes, the first Brazilian to travel to space, lieutenant colonel of the Air Force.
• Office of the Comptroller General: Wagner Rosário, the only
minister of the current government who will be retained by Bolsonaro. The minister, in office since June of this year, is a tax auditor and was an officer of the 
Army.
• Defense: Fernando Azevedo e Silva, Army Reserve General.
• Economy: Paulo Guedes, known during the campaign as 
Bolsonaro’s economic guru.
• Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI): Augusto Heleno, Army Reserve General, who led the UN peacekeeping forces in Haiti and the Military Command of the 
Amazon.
• Justice and Public Security: Sérgio Moro, a judge who gained enormous national and international notoriety for leading, since March 2014, the first-instance trial of the crimes identified in the 
“Operation Car Wash.”
• Foreign Relations: Ernesto Araújo, current director of the Department of the USA, Canada, and International Affairs at Itamaraty
• Health: Luiz Henrique Mandetta, Federal Deputy and Doctor
• Secretary-General of the Presidency: Gustavo Bebianno, former president of PSL (Bolsonaro’s party) and lawyer
Brazil and the world will find out if Bolsonaro will fulfill these drastic promises when he takes office on January 1, 2019.