Opinion: Democracy at risk
Read article by Theo Dias, president of Conectas' Deliberative Council, and Juana Kweitel, executive-director of the organization.
Picture: Carolina Antunes/PR
The Brazilian population is being attacked on two fronts. On the one hand, Brazil has become the new epicenter of Covid-19. Social inequality and insufficient public services have created a fertile ground for the spread of the virus, especially among the most vulnerable, mostly black population in urban outskirts. The situation is compounded by the disastrous attitude of the President of the Republic who, in his obsession for power, has placed Brazil in the small and caricatured group of nations governed by pandemic denialists.
Bolsonaro has used the epidemic as a political platform and confuses the population. He reinforces the false dichotomy between health and economy as an alibi to exempt himself from responsibility for the inevitable humanitarian and economic disaster. Not only is the federal government not playing its part coordinating actions to control Covid-19. Bolsonaro has also sabotaged measures taken by state and municipal governments and even the Ministry of Health, now staffed with military personnel after the dismissal of two doctors who refused to submit to the president’s insanity.
Brazil has also fallen victim to an insidious attack on democracy by the President. In order to force a political rupture and revive the Brazilian specter of military salvationism, Bolsonaro is testing the limits of democracy, by lashing out at his opponents and stirring up society against the press and the other branches of the Republic.
Besides the health and political crises, the country is also heading into recession. But unlike other countries, here the federal government does not have a package of economic and social measures to be developed with Congress and state and municipal governments. While other countries are debating how to rebuild their economies after the pandemic, Brazil has isolated itself and has become the new international pariah.
The leaked video of a cabinet meeting reveals how the government operates behind the scenes and intensifies the political climate by illustrating the absence of an agenda in the midst of this dramatic health and economic crisis. Averse to criticism, the President and his ministers spew conspiracy theories and claim the messianic conviction that they are fulfilling a mission by the people to save the country, with politicians, judges and journalists treated as obstacles.
Just as alarming as total lack of preparation and the belligerent language used by some, is the complicit silence of the majority, notably the vice president and military ministers.
In the most dramatic moment of the meeting, the President, while using profanity and firing insults at his opponents, conveys his intention to exert control over the Federal Police for personal reasons and endorses gun ownership, announcing new measures to relax regulations on the purchase, possession and tracking of firearms.
This is a government that does not tolerate dissent. Shortly after his inauguration, Bolsonaro issued a provisional executive order giving the Secretary of Government the power to monitor the activities of civil society organizations.
Conectas and other organizations opposed the measure, which was eventually rejected by Congress. However, in March this year, the government was back, appointing an unidentified agent from the ABIN (Brazilian Intelligence Agency) to coordinate the body responsible for relations with civil society. This appointment is being challenged in court by Conectas given that the coordinator’s identity has not been revealed, under the pretext of being a secret agent.
The democratic world has shown a yellow card to the Brazilian government on account of its contempt for the environment, press freedom, culture and identity agendas.
Bolsonaro is banking on permanent tension and has hinted that military intervention is the path for redemption thereby removing the obstacles that political and legal bodies have been placing on his government’s recklessness. His allies talk about “constitutional military intervention” based on a distorted interpretation of article 142 of the Brazilian Constitution, which would transfer to the Armed Forces, instead of the Supreme Court, the role of the guardian of the constitutional order.
The democratic institutions must defend themselves from the authoritarian encroachments of Jair Bolsonaro, who has now lost the legitimacy to govern the country in the midst of the worst recession of our lifetimes. His removal from the Presidency of the Republic is imperative for the preservation of the rule of law in Brazil.
Theo Dias – Criminal lawyer, president of the Board of Trustees of Conectas Human Rights
Juana Kweitel – Lawyer, executive-director of Conectas Human Rights
