It ought to have been enough to sink the Bolsonaro candidacy. Yet he prevailed, and it isn’t hard to see why: Brazilians are in the midst of a national awakening in which socialism—the alternative to a Bolsonaro presidency—has been put on trial. The resounding victory of Novo Party’s classical-liberal gubernatorial candidate Romeu Zema in the large state of Minas Gerais confirms that theory.

Mr. Haddad was the candidate of Brazil’s gigantic left-wing populist Workers’ Party, known as PT. He was also the handpicked successor to former two-term President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is in jail on a bribery conviction but remains popular with his supporters. Against Mr. Bolsonaro’s small Social Liberal Party, Mr. Haddad should have won walking away.

How Mr. Bolsonaro triumphed is worth examining because it suggests that something changed in this election. It can always change back, and it probably will. But for now the momentum is on the side of reform, and policy makers have a unique opportunity to advance liberty and prosperity in South America’s largest economy.

Mr. Bolsonaro is a social conservative, yet the “traditional values” vote alone couldn’t have propelled his candidacy. It took PT greed and hubris and the palpable failure of its left-wing ideology to send the electorate more broadly into the arms of Mr. Haddad’s rival.

// The populist revolt against corrupt political establishments marches on...

true story

** he had also been accused of overzealously purging the voter rolls in a way that could be considered tantamount to voter suppression. **

Fascinating

sharp

true story

Go Wayne