[ Bolsonaro is increasingly at war with anyone in the government
who does not bend their knee to him, stoking fears that Brazil is
accelerating its slide toward another dictatorship.]
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BRAZIL'S PRESIDENT GOES TO WAR WITH DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS - AND
HOPES MILITARY HAS HIS BACK   [[link removed]]

 

Andrew Fishman
May 4, 2020
The Intercept
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_ Bolsonaro is increasingly at war with anyone in the government who
does not bend their knee to him, stoking fears that Brazil is
accelerating its slide toward another dictatorship. _

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro attends his supporters during a
protest in favor of the government and against the lockdown amid the
coronavirus outbreak in front of the Planalto Palace in Brasília,
Brazil, on May 3, 2020., Photo: Andre Borges/NurPhoto via Getty Images


 

“OUT WITH CONGRESS, Supreme Court saboteurs! New anti-communist
constitution! Criminalize communism!” read one banner. “Military
intervention with Bolsonaro,” read another. A protester waved a sign
outside the window of a car: “Weapons for upstanding citizens.”
Hundreds of diehard, far-right protesters were gathered on Sunday in
Brasília, the capital of Brazil, to rally against the quarantine
imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus and in support of what
would amount to a military coup against the legislature and judiciary.
Multiple journalists were physically attacked. Among the speakers at
the rally was President Jair Bolsonaro himself, who was also present
at a similar protest two weeks earlier.

Bolsonaro and his allies have repeatedly insisted that these protests
in favor of overthrowing the legislature and undermining the Supreme
Court are “spontaneous movements” by average supporters, but the
Supreme Court has opened an investigation into who is behind them.
Multiple members of Congress aligned with the president are suspected
of organizing the events, including Bolsonaro’s sons.

Bolsonaro, who favors reopening the country against the advice of
public health experts, is increasingly at war with anyone in the
government who does not bend their knee to him, which includes
representatives of almost every democratic institution in the country
— stoking fears
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Brazil is accelerating its slide toward another dictatorship.

Meanwhile, the Federal Police are investigating Bolsonaro and his
politician sons for multiple suspected crimes; his former political
party has called for his impeachment; his former Justice Minister
Sergio Moro gave an eight-hour deposition
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investigators alleging that the president politically interfered in
law enforcement institutions; the public prosecutor — a recent
Bolsonaro appointee — has asked for an investigation into Moro’s
allegations against Bolsonaro; Supreme Court ministers have blocked
multiple actions he has attempted to take in recent days; and the
commander of the army has publicly contradicted his coronavirus
denialism. That’s just a sampling of the battles underway. With the
deck stacked so high against him, Bolsonaro is not signaling defeat or
moderation, but rather that he is willing to go all out on his war
against Brazilian democracy.

“I pray to God that we have no problems this week. We have reached
the limit. There is no more conversation, from now on we will not only
demand, we will make them follow the Constitution. It will be enforced
at any price,” Bolsonaro told the admiring crowd
[[link removed]] in
Brasília on Sunday, standing at the entrance of the Planalto
presidential palace. Brazilian, American, and Israeli flags flew
behind him. Bolsonaro has complained about what he feels is undue
interference in his constitutionally mandated executive domain —
particularly by the Supreme Court. He later added
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“Enough interference. We are not going to allow for any more
interference. No more patience.”

Bolsonaro addressed protesters who are explicitly advocating for the
overthrow of democratic institutions, which is a crime in Brazil,
where a string of military presidents ruled from 1964 to 1985 after a
coup backed by the U.S. Bolsonaro and his vice president, retired Gen.
Hamilton Mourão, have praised the military dictatorship throughout
their careers, but Bolsonaro has gone further to even openly
celebrate
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widespread use of torture.

Whipped into a fervor at the rally, some of Bolsonaro’s
supporters physically assaulted journalists
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were covering the protest. Dida Sampaio, a photojournalist for O
Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, was pushed to the ground, kicked, and
punched by protesters who yelled, “Trash,” “Get out,” and
obscenities. Marco Pereira, a driver for the newspaper, had his legs
kicked out from under him during the attack, and other journalists
were verbally harassed. The incident provoked widespread condemnation
from the national journalists’ union
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news organizations, and political leaders. Bolsonaro later said he did
not witness the attack but denied
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his supporters were responsible. “If there was aggression, it was an
infiltrator, some crazy person who should be punished,” he said.

Secure Power and Stifle Dissent

A political crisis erupted in Brazil late last month when Moro, the
justice minister, resigned
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chats between Moro and Bolsonaro suggested that the president wanted
to replace Mauricio Valeixo as head of the Federal Police to halt
investigations into presidential allies. Against Moro’s wishes,
Bolsonaro fired Valeixo and appointed Alexandre Ramagem, director of
Brazil’s intelligence agency, ABIN, and a close friend of his sons.
That appointment was blocked by a decision from Supreme Court Minister
Alexandre de Moraes before Ramagem could be sworn in. On Monday,
Bolsonaro announced that Ramagem’s righthand man, Rolando Souza,
would take the position and had him sworn in 20 minutes later.
Souza’s first act in office
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to replace the superintendent of the Federal Police in Rio de Janeiro,
lending credence to Moro’s accusations; Rio de Janeiro is
Bolsonaro’s home state and the jurisdiction where multiple
investigations into his family are underway.

During the 15 months of the Bolsonaro administration, eight ministers
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been fired or resigned — two in the past three weeks. Finance
Minister Paulo Guedes was also recently on the defensive after
publicly disagreeing with a Bolsonaro-backed economic plan that was
put forward by the military. The president and allies are
also currently pressuring
[[link removed]] Culture
Minister Regina Duarte to resign.

The president is also reportedly
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the removal of the army’s top general, Edson Leal Pujol, to replace
him with a younger and less qualified general named Luiz Eduardo
Ramos, a close adviser to Bolsonaro who is reportedly very loyal to
him. The news has rankled some in the military and led Ramos to
publicly deny that the plan is being considered. Such a move is within
his power as president, but would usually entail a serious
justification, not purely political considerations. Pujol has put
himself at odds with the president by calling the coronavirus pandemic
“one of the greatest challenges in our history” and defending
social isolation measures to limit its spread.

Separately, a legislative agency responsible for oversight of the
executive branch requested an investigation into Bolsonaro for
political interference into the military for revoking three decisions
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would have increased oversight into weapons and munitions produced in
Brazil, which is entirely under the purview of the military.

The day before the protest, Bolsonaro held an unscheduled meeting with
top military leaders and the former military men in his cabinet to
discuss the current political morass. According to the Folha de
S.Paulo newspaper, many of the generals agreed
[[link removed]] that
the court was overstepping its constitutional authority. However,
President of the Court José Antonio Dias Toffoli reportedly
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felt that some of the rulings issued monocratically by his colleagues
crossed the line into “judicial activism.”

Bolsonaro’s defense minister, a retired army general, issued
a statement
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Monday in which he reiterated the coronavirus’s threat to the
population and disavowed attacks on journalists, but signaled that
— speaking on behalf of the organizations he oversees — he agrees
that the Supreme Court is overstepping its authority. The Armed Forces
“consider independence and harmony between the [branches of
government] to be essential to the governability of the country,”
the statement said.

Flat-Footed Response

Brazil is quickly becoming one of the global hot spots of coronavirus
infections. On Sunday, Brazil had the third-highest number of new
deaths of any country in the world. Official statistics
[[link removed]], which are widely understood to be
dramatically underreported, show that Brazil has more than 105,000
cases and 7,321 deaths from Covid-19. In São Paulo, black Brazilians
are 62 percent more likely to die
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the disease than their white peers, a clear measure of the nation’s
rampant inequality and government’s failures to address it.

As The Intercept reported, due to flawed certification procedures by
federal authorities, 75 percent of Covid-19 tests available in Brazil
are unreliable, many of which were even denied approval to be sold
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the countries in which they are manufactured. Public health systems in
many states are collapsing, and doctors are being forced to ration
care. When questioned about the situation last week, Bolsonaro said
[[link removed]],
“So what? I lament it. What do you want me to do?”

Last month, Bolsonaro fired
[[link removed]] Health
Minister Henrique Mandetta for publicly challenging him on the
government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and replaced him
with the more complacent Nelson Teich, a health care executive and
doctor. Sen. Kátia Abreu recently said in a press conference that
Teich has proven to be “a little lost” in his job. “Where is the
general planning?” Abreu remarked. Teich himself has admitted that
the country is “navigating blind” in its Covid-19 response and
angered public health officials by limiting the already scarce access
to data on the public health situation. “The general sentiment is
frustration,” said Rui Costa
[[link removed]],
governor of Bahia state, after a virtual meeting between governors and
the new health minister.

Despite being widely criticized for his perceived inaction, Teich was
able to push through an illegal measure
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block Cuban doctors from returning to Brazil to help prop up
collapsing regional health care systems. In 2013, the presidential
administration of Dilma Rousseff began to bring in thousands of Cuban
doctors to serve communities in the most remote reaches of the
country, where it was difficult to attract Brazilian professionals.
Bolsonaro, who campaigned heavily against an imaginary communist
threat, made clear that he would end the program after he won the
presidential election in 2018, so Cuba canceled the contract and
recalled its doctors. Some of the Cuban health care professionals
stuck around, hoping to be able to continue working in Brazil outside
of the intergovernmental program, but the administration has
repeatedly blocked them from getting certified for ideological
reasons.

“I’m sure of one thing: We have the people on our side, we have
the Armed Forces on the side of the people in the name of law, order,
democracy, and freedom. And most importantly, we have God with us,”
Bolsonaro told supporters
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At least part of the claim is false: The president’s approval
rating
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dropped to 27 percent, down 24 percentage points since he took office
last January. In the coming weeks and months, the Armed Forces and God
— usually more abstruse — will have to reveal which side they are
on.

_Andrew Fishman is a reporter for The Intercept and Managing Editor of
The Intercept Brasil.  His work has focused on security, technology,
human rights, Brazil, and documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward
Snowden. Previously, as a freelance journalist and multimedia
producer, his work has appeared on NPR, Al Jazeera English, Bloomberg
TV, and other outlets.  He lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is
fluent in Portuguese._

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