2026-05-06
12 分钟The Economist.
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It is one of the world's most unequal countries.
Thanks to its colonial and slave importing past, Brazil is one of the most racially mixed countries too.
To cross it can feel like visiting different continents.
The Amazon jungle gives way to deserts and palm-lined coasts in the northeast.
Most of the population is mixed race.
Fly south and villages are dotted with Favre,
houses and vineyards built by the white descendants of German and Italian immigrants.
San Paolo is the helicopter capital of the world,
in which elites are whisked to and from their penthouses on some 2,000 flights a day.
Meanwhile, in Santarém, a city in the Amazon, 96% of residents have no sewerage.
One might expect such disparities to foster deep political division.
In the 2010s, after three decades of democracy, Brazil had become more polarised.
The dominant political force, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva's Workers' Party,
wobbled with corruption, facilitating the rise of Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist, who became president in 2019.
The clash between the two men and their followers has defined Brazilian politics since.