Amid Brazil's tragedy, our hope is the prospect of Bolsonaro's defeat next year

[Judi Lynn]

Celso Amorim
As Covid deaths climb the president seems to be throwing the country into an abyss that will be difficult to escape from

Fri 2 Apr 2021 12.30 EDT

It is no exaggeration to say that Brazil is going through the most serious crisis in its history. With nearly 4,000 deaths a day and moving quickly towards a figure of 500,000 people killed by Covid-19, Brazil is not just the epicentre of the pandemic. It has also become the breeding ground for new variants of the virus: a real threat to its own people and the whole of humankind.

In the midst of a public health war that is being lost, its president, Jair Bolsonaro, is throwing the country more deeply into an abyss, from where it will be hard to emerge. Apart from the suffering caused to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of relatives and friends of the victims, the economy has been plunged into recession, with 14% of the workforce condemned to the dole. In contrast to what happened during the first wave of the pandemic, when Congress forced the government to distribute relatively significant financial aid to a large portion of the population, now fewer people will benefit with a smaller amount.

It is clear that national recovery is impossible until the health situation improves. In the field of politics, where the recent decisions of the supreme court exonerating former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had brought some hope of a return to normality, the sudden removal by the president of the minister of defence, plus the resignation of the heads of the branches of the armed forces, threw the country into institutional uncertainty.

Rumours indicate that the top brass did not agree with Bolsonaro’s suggestions of establishing a “state of siege”, as a possible prelude to some kind of “self-coup”, in which he would acquire extraordinary powers. It is not yet clear how this military crisis will unfold and whether some kind of coup may still take place. It’s more likely that such a possibility will remain in the background as a permanent threat to be used in case impeachment procedures against the president are started by Congress or – something not off the cards – social unrest grows as a result of the disastrous management of the health crisis and of the economic downturn.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/02/brazil-tragedy-bolsonaro-defeat-covid-deaths-president#_=_

[NJCher]

1. Imagine if the

Other guy had succeeded with his coup. This would be us.