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At the inauguration of the legislative year, the far-right president presented his priorities: mass vaccination and an economic plan to help Brazil in one of its worst financial crises. While the ruling legislators offered him to work in harmony with the Executive, the opponents booed him.
Despite being one of the most visible skeptics regarding Covid-19, President Jair Bolsonaro positioned vaccination against the coronavirus as one of his priorities in the legislative year that began this Wednesday in Brazil.
During the inaugural session of Congress, the president re-committed to the implementation of a massive vaccination plan. His promise is that, under his administration, the South American giant will be able to buy the necessary doses to inoculate the 210 million Brazilians. He also pointed out that the country will immediately acquire the vaccines that are approved by the Brazilian health authorities.
Until now, the Osvaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) has an alliance with the British-Swedish AstraZeneca to produce vaccines locally and the Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo develops the CureVac doses in association with the Chinese laboratory Sinovac. With the inoculations of both foreign laboratories, it has been possible to vaccinate 1 in 100 inhabitants of the country, according to data from Our World in Data, which is backed by the University of Oxford.
In addition to the progress already made, Bolsonaro said that his government has reserved some 20,000 million reais (about 4,000 million dollars) for less than two months to buy more vaccines. And it is that despite the fact that the president openly clashed with the governor of Sao Paulo for promoting the Sinovac vaccine; now, before Congress, the president defended the massive inoculation as part of his “effort for a return to normality.”
– Hoje, we begin a new chapter and we have a new opportunity to work together in Brazil; placing the country, in no major interests pessoais, not the heart of each decision taken; respecting, above all, the anseios and as tradições do povo brasileiro.
– Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) February 3, 2021
Later, on his Twitter account, Bolsonaro referred to the beginning of the legislative year as a “new opportunity to work together for Brazil” and put the country at the center of all decisions.
An agenda for economic recovery
The great challenge will be the tough economic crisis that challenges his popularity and his plans in the Legislative. The monies the government ordered for Brazilians who lost jobs during the pandemic boosted the president’s popularity, but cost the Treasury more than 322 billion reais ($ 60 billion). That spending pushed government finances into the red.
Against this background, in this Wednesday’s session, Bolsonaro asked the deputies and senators for “help and collaboration” with the approval of the Executive’s economic initiatives. Currently, the two Chambers are debating government proposals aimed at Brazil’s financial recovery, after its economy fell 4.5% in 2020 as a result of the pandemic.
One of the discussions, for example, revolves around the possible extension of the financial assistance that the Government gave to the unemployed until December 31 of last year.
Other issues that Bolsonaro emphasized were the independence of the Central Bank and the administrative and fiscal reform. He also highlighted the privatization of state companies, such as Eletrobras, considered the largest in the electricity sector in all of Latin America and which is waiting for the Parliament to approve its privatization since 2016.
The president also stressed the importance of a planned “federative pact” reform bill that aims to renew financial ties between the federal and local governments.
Most likely, Congress will approve the Executive’s projects, since Bolsonaro’s political allies took control of the Legislative Assembly last Monday, February 1 in the elections for the spokesmen of both chambers: Arthur Lira will preside over the Chamber of Deputies and Rodrigo Pacheco he will do the same in the Senate for the next two years.
Proof of the advantage that the ruling party will have was evidenced in this Wednesday’s session. While Bolsonaro assured that the current circumstances required “a much more coordinated action” among all public actors, Lira and Pacheco committed to the president to collaborate with the search for the “necessary harmony between the powers of the nation.”
Despite this, the path does not seem entirely clear for the far-right president, or at least that is how it was evidenced at the parliamentary inauguration.
A Parliament divided between support and rejection of Bolsonaro
Opposition lawmakers booed the president as he addressed the joint session of Congress. While some shouted “genocidal”, the ruling politicians defended it with the word “myth”, as Bolsonaro’s followers call him.
Once inside the hemicycle, the opponents interrupted the start of the president’s speech with more boos. Bolsonaro responded by saying “see you in 2022”, referring to next year’s presidential elections and with which he plans to seek a second term.
Critics of the Brazilian president complain about the handling that Bolsonaro has given to the pandemic and especially to the second wave that is passing through the country. In the last three weeks, figures from the Ministry of Health show that the country has registered about 60,000 new infections every day, a statistic that was not seen even in July during the worst of times.
Brazil is also one of the countries most affected by the pandemic and so far has accumulated more than 9.3 million cases and 226,000 deaths, with the incidence of the virus uncontrolled and with a new variable emerging in the Amazon. In addition, the outlook is so critical that a group of Australian experts from the Lowy Institute concluded that Brazil is the country that has managed the pandemic worst. All this will put to the test the ideas that Bolsonaro brought to the Legislature today.
With Reuters and EFE
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source https://pledgetimes.com/brazil-vaccination-privatizations-and-tax-reform-among-jair-bolsonaros-priorities/
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