Abstract
It remains to be seen how the recent October 2018 election will affect Brazil’s economy and foreign multinational corporations aiming to enter and operate in this market. The election has offered Brazilian voters two extreme political choices: Fernando Haddad of the left-wing Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) party, supported by the popular former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who campaigned for Haddad out of prison while serving his 12-year sentence, and Jair Bolsonaro of the Partido Social Liberal (PSL), a right-wing populist. The election of the latter as the new president, which resulted in a drastic shift of Brazilian politics to the right, raised both concerns and hope in the country. President Bolsonaro’s populist campaign, which has widely been compared with the populist campaign and political rhetoric of US President Donald J. Trump, and the selection of a far-right former army captain as Vice President, one who shares Bolsonaro’s nostalgia for Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964–1985, are reasons for considerable concerns about a new wave of far-right, authoritarian-style government in the country as well as in Latin America (a wave that has also recently been evident in other parts of the globe). However, the country’s moribund economy and systemically corrupt political environment called for a change in Brazil after nearly 15 years of left-wing rule. The new president’s selection of a University of Chicago-trained free-market economist, Paulo Guedes, as his economic advisor and new finance minister is sending signals of hope that the long-needed economic and financial reforms will be realized, similar to the Milton Friedman-style free-market reforms that were implemented in Chile under General Augusto Pinochet, who came to power in 1973 after overthrowing socialist president Salvador Allende.