LGBTQ Governor Who Backed Bolsonaro Now Wants Brazil’s Top Job

 | 
9/3/21

The presidential hopeful favored by investors in what’s shaping up to be a divisive and brutal election campaign in Brazil is the 36-year-old governor of a conservative state who just came out as LGBTQ. Eduardo Leite rode President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing wave into office in 2018, winning over financial markets with a program of fiscal austerity and privatizations in his southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, which shares borders with Argentina and Uruguay. His challenge now is to make himself known to the broader population, who largely have never heard of him, starting with Brazilians who reject both the incumbent and his leftist adversary, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He walks a fine line. He criticizes Bolsonaro but voted for him. And he says that although he supports equality, he won’t be an activist for LGBTQ rights. “In the election next year, we’ve got to create a path that is free from the Lula-Bolsonaro dispute,” he says on an icy August night, during an interview at the residential wing of the governor’s palace where he lives with his two dogs. The prospect of dramatic change in Brazil in 2022 is great: Bolsonaro’s popularity has never been lower, and Lula is steadily edging up in the polls. But 42% of voters say they haven’t yet made up their minds. “Leite is a very plausible name, and one of the most viable names for a ‘third way,’” says Deysi Cioccari, political science professor at Catholic University of Sao Paulo. “He is elegant in his political answers, he is thoughtful and calm, and this is in a certain way what Brazil needs to see itself as having some kind of normality.”

Regions: ,

Share this:

Latest Global News

Added on: 03/28/2024
03/27/2024
Nine men were sentenced to death by a Houthi court in Yemen in a mass trial based on “dubious” charges of sodomy, a human …
Added on: 03/28/2024
03/27/2024
Thailand is set to become the first Southeast Asian nation to recognise equal marriage after politicians passed a same-sex marriage bill. The lower house of …
Added on: 03/28/2024
03/27/2024
In what looks like a deliberate bid to redirect intense public scrutiny away from grave allegations implicating her in a seemingly multibillion-shilling corruption scandal, …

Explore LGBTQ+ Issues

Other News from ,

Added on: 03/10/2024
Around a hundred women, transgender, and non-binary people gathered on Wednesday, March 6 on the patio of the Hotel Hector Quagliaro in Buenos Aires, …
Added on: 03/09/2024
Around a hundred women, transgender, and non-binary people gathered on Wednesday, March 6 on the patio of the Hotel Hector Quagliaro in Buenos Aires, …
Added on: 02/16/2024
Jorge Apolaya, a 45-year-old Peruvian, is pained to recall his mother’s disappointment in 2007, when she heard him admit he was gay and liked …