Brazil has quasi-presidential system, but it's Chamber of Deputies has the actual power.
In the 2000s, Lula's PT was the largest party (usually around 20-25% of the total seats) and could as such strongarm smaller leftist parties into a governing coalition with an absolute majority.
Lula won the presidential election in 2022, but his party PT was the 3rd largest, and center-right parties have created a vote sharing agreement with his party.
The anti-Bolsonaro center-right parties have 172 seats in the Chamber, Lula's governing coalition has 226. You need 257 to have a majority. This means Lula has to severely tone down his rhetoric otherwise a subset of the independent parties would defect to Bolsonaro's coalition.
> but as a geopolitical news junkie
As someone who worked in the space, stop.
It's a waste of time as you're not in a position to make changes, nor are you reading primary or peer reviewed secondary sources.
If you insist on continuing, use a mix of
- Academic books (generally HUP, OUP, UCUP though the occasion PUP is alright)
- White Papers from top tier think tanks (use the UPenn Rankings [0])
- Axios and Politico - their target readership is aimed directly at those working on the Hill or Hill adjacent
Just sticking with these 3 types of resources should be enough.
Also, IGNORE anything on Twitter, Reddit, or HN (ironic ik). The lesswrong/credibledefense/zeihan types are all idiots ime. Using an "objective" tone doesn't make rubbish "objective"
[0] - https://www.bruegel.org/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploa...