'The ship is sinking': Bolsonaro battles to block
foul-mouthed cabinet video
Brazil
A partial transcript of the meeting in Brasília offers
a glimpse of the paranoia and ideological obsessions of Brazil’s president
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EDITORIAL
CORONAVÍRUS
Bolsonaro, um remédio contra o populismo
Bolsonaro arrisca-se a ser um vírus contra o populismo
que o criou porque, para lá de todos os abusos, é manifestamente incompetente,
inculto e com uma visão do mundo reduzida à caserna onde germinou.
16 de Maio de
2020, 6:00
Dias depois de
assumir a pasta da Saúde, o ministro Nelson Teich bateu com a porta a Jair
Bolsonaro. O seu gesto é o mais recente exemplo do custo da contradição entre o
discurso dos populistas quando disputam o poder e a sua acção quando o exercem.
Teich sai por se recusar mudar o protocolo médico e aceitar, contra a opinião
da ciência, o uso generalizado de cloroquina para travar a pandemia; Henrique
Mandetta, seu antecessor na Saúde, saiu por defender o confinamento contra a
vontade de Bolsonaro; o outrora santificado Sergio Moro saiu da Justiça por se
opor à ingerência do Presidente na polícia criminal. Quando o Brasil precisava
de tino, vê-se entregue aos desmandos de um incendiário.
Bolsonaro foi
eleito com base na presunção de que a tenda da corrupção montada nos governos
do PT seria demolida. Com a crença de que o seu discurso agressivo e básico era
fundamental para o resgate da soberania popular. Com a certeza de que um homem
sintonizado com a raiva do povo contra os políticos tradicionais só poderia
servir a causa do povo. Com a condescendência de que os seus apelos ao
autoritarismo da ditadura eram apenas discursos de circunstância. Bolsonaro
seduziu no desespero, ao vender soluções simples para problemas difíceis.
O manual do
populismo funcionou e Bolsonaro chegou ao poder. O manual da História também
funcionou e Bolsonaro é hoje a prova mais acabada de que o populismo é uma
ilusão pestilenta. O Brasil sofreria sempre imenso com a covid-19, mas
dispensava um presidente que se arroga dizer que, agora, “essa questão da
cloroquina passa por mim”, que festeja com apoiantes enquanto médicos e
ministros pedem distância social, que manda abrir lojas contra a vontade de
governadores, que resume o perigo da pandemia a uma “gripezinha ou
resfriadinho”. Numa altura em que o Brasil precisava de rumo e unidade, tem a
conduzi-lo um arruaceiro afundado na sua incompetência e enredado nas suas
quezílias.
Bolsonaro
arrisca-se a ser um vírus contra o populismo que o criou porque, para lá de
todos os abusos, é manifestamente incompetente, inculto e com uma visão do
mundo reduzida à caserna onde germinou. Terá sempre com ele uma fatia do Brasil
que o consagra com igual fervor ao que dirige a pastores evangélicos do quilate
de Edir Macedo. Mas há muito Brasil para lá dessa caricatura. O Brasil
cosmopolita, moderno, vibrante e culto, o Brasil hoje desorientado e ansioso,
aprendeu uma terrível lição. O ódio ou a desilusão com as mentiras do PT não
justificam a aposta em tão sinistro personagem. Que sirva de exemplo.
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Tom Phillips
Tom
Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Fri 15 May
2020 18.29 BSTLast modified on Fri 15 May 2020 20.13 BST
The
coronavirus pandemic has halted production of Brazil’s steamy telenovela soap
operas – but one small-screen blockbuster is on everyone’s lips.
A two-hour
video of a heated and expletive-ridden cabinet meeting chaired by President
Jair Bolsonaro last month has become the subject of an extraordinary political
arm-wrestle, exposing the intrigues and eccentricities at the centre of
Brazilian power.
“This
meeting is the perfect portrait of the Bolsonaro administration,” said Bruno
Boghossian, a columnist for the Folha de São Paulo newspaper in Brazil’s
political capital, Brasília.
“Conspiracy
theories, ideological issues, made-up battles, and culture wars – all right
there at the heart of government.”
The video
of the supposedly private plenum on 22 April was unexpectedly thrust into the
public domain by the resignation of Bolsonaro’s justice minister, Sergio Moro,
two days later.
Moro says
the images contain key evidence supporting his allegation that Bolsonaro tried
to meddle in federal police business and must be released as part of a supreme
court investigation into those claims.
The footage
was privately screened for investigators this week but has yet to be made
public.
Even before
its release, however, the video is casting a profoundly embarrassing, and
potentially compromising light on Bolsonaro and the far-right administration he
has led since January 2019.
A partial
transcript – produced by the attorney general’s office on Thursday – and a
succession of excruciating leaks offer a tantalising glimpse of the world of
paranoia, radicalism and curse words around the leader of the world’s
fourth-largest democracy.
“I’m not
going to wait for [the federal police] to fuck my family and friends just for
shits and giggles,” Bolsonaro fumes at one point, according to the official
account, apparently in reference to police inquiries involving his politician
sons.
Elsewhere
Bolsonaro allegedly brands São Paulo’s governor a “shit”, calls Rio’s governor
“manure” and seems to recognize the chaos engulfing his government, as it faces
economic meltdown and a public health crisis that has claimed more than 14,000
Brazilian lives.
On Friday,
Bolsonaro’s government suffered a further blow when his health minsiter
resigned less than a month after taking the job.
“The ship
is sinking,” Bolsonaro is quoted as saying by the Estado de São Paulo during
the assembly at the presidential palace.
Bolsonaro
is not the only person compromised by the footage.
Brazil’s
minister of institutional security, Augusto Heleno, allegedly lambasts China in
the video.
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Brazil’s minister of institutional security, Augusto Heleno, allegedly lambasts
China in the video. Photograph: Adriano Machado/Reuters
Reports
suggest his intelligence chief, Gen Augusto Heleno, lambasted the Communist
party leaders of Brazil’s most important trade partner, China, during the
encounter.
The foreign
minister, Ernesto Araújo, also reportedly attacked Beijing, accusing it of
responsibility for the spread of what he calls the “communavirus”. (One report
this week suggested China’s ambassador to Brazil had unfollowed Araújo on
Twitter because of the alleged comments.)
On
Wednesday Heleno tweeted that releasing footage containing “confidential and
even secret matters” was “an unpatriotic act, almost an attack on national
security”.
Another
cameo reportedly comes from the education minister, Abraham Weintraub. The
magazine Veja has reported that during the assembly Weintraub calls for the
imprisonment of Brazil’s supreme court judges and calls his country’s capital a
“cancer” and “crap”.
Another
outlet, UOL, claimed Weintraub admitted “hating” the expression “indigenous
peoples”.
“My remarks
are republican and polite,” Weintraub said on Twitter this week, adding that he
was not in the habit of using blue language.
Bolsonaro’s
economy minister, Paulo Guedes, apparently is. On Friday he was reported to
have told the meeting the government needed to hurry up and sell “the fucking
Bank of Brazil”.
The
outbursts – coupled with Bolsonaro’s potentially incriminating remarks about
wanting to change the head of Brazil’s federal police – explain the legal
battle currently raging to prevent the video seeing the light of day.
Bolsonaro’s
foes, who now include Moro, are demanding its immediate release. But on
Thursday the attorney general, Augusto Aras, warned broadcasting the video
could provoke “public instability” and spark a “fishing expedition” targeting
members of Bolsonaro’s administration.
Boghossian
said the government’s reluctance to release the footage was unsurprising. The
images showed a president who was “cornered and surrounded” and a country that
was directionless and hostage to “ideological mumbo jumbo”.
One supreme
court justice was this week reported to have branded the meeting the “reunião
de insanos” – an assembly of the insane.
“It’s a
pretty apt description,” Boghossian said.
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