Discovering South America: Brazil

A Legacy of Inequality 23

itary. Its presidential candidate, Getúlio Vargas—whose elec- tion was stolen through fraud—was able to assume office thanks to a popular uprising. Vargas dominated Brazilian politics for the next 24 years. He succeeded in modernizing the country both politically and economically. Vargas’s sec- ond presidential term was cut short by his suicide in 1954. Vargas’s successor and protegé, Juscelino Kubitschek, attempted to close the economic and social gaps between Brazil’s rich and poor through costly social programs. He built Brasília, the new capital, which was supposed to bring development to the vast interior of Brazil. But by the early 1960s, inflation battered the economy and further eroded

Getúlio Vargas

the standard of living of the nation’s poor. For a time, it was feared that Brazil would turn to communism. That didn’t happen, but in 1964 Brazil’s fragile democracy was squashed by a military coup. The military would rule Brazil for the next two decades. During that time, Brazil’s economy improved dramatically. By the 1970s Brazil had become one of the economic powerhouses of the Western Hemisphere, helped by loans and investment from abroad. In 1985 the military handed power back to a civilian government, and Brazilians elected their president by popular vote for the first time in more than 20 years. Despite Brazil’s remarkable success story, serious problems loomed. In the 1980s and into the 1990s, periodic bouts of inflation, accompanied by slow economic growth or complete stagnation, plagued the country. Brazil suddenly found itself struggling to pay its foreign debt, and investment dried up.