Jair Bolsonaro and the press urging officials to respect constitutional limits.
The new Defense Minister, General Walter Braga Netto, who assumed this Tuesday, preferred not to alleviate those concerns and, instead, aligned himself this Wednesday with the most extreme thinking of the agent.
The official released a statement claiming a new anniversary of the 1964 military coup in which he asked that “Brazilians celebrate the date” in which “the Armed Forces assumed the responsibility of pacifying the country, to guarantee democratic freedoms.”
The note caused a harsh reaction from the governor of São Paulo , Joao Doria, a former ally of Bolsonaro and today his most powerful enemy. “That letter proposing the holding of a military coup is an affront. We have nothing to commemorate, “he said.
The state president added that “the greatest desire (of Bolsonaro) is to be a dictator (…), he has an extreme vocation for authoritarianism.”
Doria belongs to the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso who, this Wednesday, said on social networks that “as if the pandemic and the difficult economic moment were not enough, there is concern among the military leaders. I hope that the Armed Forces remain faithful to the Constitution, a commandment that is valid for all citizens ”.
Jair Bolsonaro, flanked by the now expelled military chiefs. Photo: AP
In keeping with that recommendation, the influential newspaper Or Balloon He compared Bolsonaro with the Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chávez and asked the generals “not to embark on an adventure of the delusional Bolsonarist fantasy … Mixing the Government and the Armed Forces in power is the recipe for tragedy,” he said. The newspaper State of San Pablo In turn, he opined that “part of Brasilia is dominated by coup plotters and delusional ”.
Last Monday Bolsonaro handed over the head of his controversial foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, an anti-communist and anti-globalization fanatic who was his greatest ally in the cabinet and the clearest face of the government’s ideological profile.
With that defeat he sought to calm his members of Parliament worried about the mismanagement of the pandemic and the terrible image of the country to which they attribute the difficulties in obtaining the necessary amount of vaccines against Covid.
Bolsonaro, at the same time that he relieved the foreign minister, changed six ministers but with the central intention of overthrowing the defense minister, General Fernando Azevedo e Silva, a moderate military man who opposed the politicization of the armed forces. openly promoted by the president. That fall anticipated that of the military chiefs, especially Army Commander Edson Pujol, a critic of the Executive’s disdain for the pandemic and associated with the idea that politics should not enter the barracks.
“Down with the dictatorship,” read the banners at a demonstration against the government of Jair Bolsonaro, this Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro. Photo: AP
Longing for the dictatorship
Vice President Hamilton Mourao assured this Wednesday that “nothing has changed” in the country and downplayed these relays despite the fact that they are the first known in several decades outside of a presidential change.
That background is what gave the anniversary a special tint. On March 31, 1964, a military regime was installed in Brazil that lasted for 21 years as a result of movements in the barracks and the departure from Brasilia of President Joao Goulart, who in turn had replaced the resigning leader, Janio Quadros. This anniversary is the third with Bolsonaro in the presidency who has always highlighted his longing for that dictatorial time.
The current political turbulence is measured by the cabinet and military crisis and for a defining approach by Bolsonaro to the so-called bloc Centrao Parliament, an alliance of political parties from the center to the right that operate on a clientelistic basis.
The president needs that support to try for reelection next year . But the relationship is shaky. The head of Deputies, Arthur Lira, who belongs to that sector, just days ago suggested the possibility of promoting a trial that overthrows the president who is criticized for the exacerbation of the pandemic due to poor government management.
Along these lines, part of the Brazilian opposition announced this Wednesday that they will present a new impeachment request against Bolsonaro, for trying to “co-opt” the armed forces. with the purpose of destabilizing the country.
One of the signatories is Deputy Marcelo Freixo, from the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL). a force that defines itself as the left and has joined sectors of the Brazilian establishment that question the government’s management.
“Bolsonaro never had a commitment to democracy, he cannot govern because he has no competition, the opposition faces this government that wants to implant fear and insecurity,” he denounced.
Source: EFE, AFP and Clarín
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