SAO PAULO — Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro said on Friday that, if elected president, he would curb Brazil’s rising public debt without touching politically sensitive social spending, rejecting media reports that his campaign was considering such cuts, according to Reuters.
The right-wing lawmaker, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, faces leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a runoff on October 25 and currently leads polls against the incumbent, Reuters reported. In an interview with TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional, Brazil’s most-watched newscast, he pledged a fiscal adjustment of 200 billion reais (about $39.49 billion) in the federal budget if elected.
He dismissed proposals attributed to his campaign in media reports — halting real increases in the minimum wage, eliminating automatic adjustments for social benefits, or reducing mandatory social expenditures — and said there had been a lot of fake news circulating, making it important to set the record straight. Instead, he said, the adjustment would come from eliminating ministries, tackling mismanagement at state-controlled companies and monetising federal real estate assets.
The fiscal backdrop is demanding. Brazil’s gross public debt has risen by more than 10 percentage points during Lula’s term, to 82.9 percent of GDP, while long-term interest rates have fallen since Bolsonaro’s first-round victory — a market signal that investors, for now, expect tighter fiscal management from him. He also said he would not seek to reverse a constitutional amendment approved on Wednesday that shortens Brazil’s working week from six days to five.
Why it matters: Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy, and the runoff is a direct contest over its fiscal direction. A challenger promising consolidation without touching social spending is making a claim voters and markets will test line by line: the savings he names — ministries, state firms, asset sales — must add up to 200 billion reais without the benefit and wage measures he has ruled out.
What happens next: eight days of campaigning remain before the October 25 vote. Expect scrutiny of both candidates’ fiscal arithmetic, further polling, and a debate over the shorter working week amendment. Read the Reuters report at Reuters.
