Bolsonaro Encourages Anti-Confinement Protests

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The advocacy of a mild policy towards the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country became the subject of a video of institutional promotion of Jair Bolsonaro‘s presidency. In it, the return to work from confinement is encouraged, countering global guidelines on the subject.

The video was delivered to Bolsonarist groups in the form of a test. In it, categories such as the self-employed and even health professionals are displayed as willing to return to regular work.

“Brazil can’t stop”, closes each stretch of the video, including “Brazilians infected by the coronavirus”. The clan’s firstborn, Senator Flávio, was in charge of launching this stage of the #BrasilNaoPodeParar (Brazil Can’t Stop) campaign on a Facebook posting Thursday night, March 26th.

According to people involved in the making of the video, there was no extra cost involved as it was a collage of single footage.

The publication, which had not yet been approved, would initially be available on government websites. Television broadcasters began to be sought to screen the video at no cost, but so far there are no reports that any have accepted it. The Secom website, whose editor, Fabio Wajngarten, has been contaminated by the pathogen, released the campaign’s hashtag on Wednesday, March 25th.

In addition, the president himself posted a video on his social media of a motorcade held in Balneário Camboriú (Santa Catarina State) against social isolation recommended by most governments dealing with the pandemic and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The attack demonstrates that Bolsonaro has bet all his chips on the assumption that the pandemic, which has killed 77 Brazilians since the first case recorded a month ago, will have little impact on public health.

Since the health issue emerged, Bolsonaro has systematically denied the severity of the infection by the virus causing the Covid-19. In contrast, the 27 state governors have united on one front calling for federal resources and measures to mitigate the economic impact of the crisis.

The state chiefs were then unofficially led by João Doria, the governor of São Paulo, the state most affected by the crisis. There are dissidents, such as Santa Catarina, who have embraced the rhetoric of maintaining economic activity.

As Doria is an obvious presidential candidate for 2022, Bolsonaro elected him as a symbol of what he terms “hysteria” in relation to the pandemic. Doria, on the other hand, raised his criticism of the President.

In fact, São Paulo is the federal unit where the social isolation measures recommended by WHO are being enforced more rigorously, albeit gradually, in an attempt to prevent an economic collapse – the state accounts for 40 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

The 46 million São Paulo citizens have been under quarantine since Tuesday, March 24th, and the measure should progress towards the total isolation of the population at this point when the contagion is growing.

This week, Doria and Bolsonaro met during a video conference in which the governor criticized the President’s remarks condemning measures such as the closure of schools, and in return was accused of trying to promote himself politically.

The fact is that the governors agreed to comply with the WHO recommendations at a meeting on Wednesday attended by Rodrigo Maia, the Chamber President who has been working as the head of the legislature in the crisis.

Since then, Maia granted two interviews in which he criticized the government and demanded immediate action from Bolsonaro by submitting emergency measures to Congress – at the risk of legislators taking such initiatives themselves.

On Thursday, virtual calls for motorcades were multiplied in favor of the Bolsonarist notion that Brazil should return to activity, although quarantines are still restricted to some states, São Paulo in the lead. The irony is that they are motorcades, supposedly safer ways of protesting in times of coronavirus.

Many calls are being made for Monday, March 30th, the eve of the 56th anniversary of the 1964 military coup, the subject of Bolsonaro’s worship. The dispute between Bolsonaro and the established Powers has isolated the President.

First were the protests of March 15th, in which demonstrators personally supported by the president called for the closure of Congress and the Supreme Court, even though the Planalto chief denied any such intention.

It was there that the coronavirus emergency added to the equation in the dispute over the management of R$30 billion (US$6 billion) in the Budget since Bolsonaro hugged people despite having been ordered to be quarantined due to contact with infected people in his delegation on a trip to the US, Wajngarten one of them.

No fewer than 25 people who had contact with the president have been contaminated so far.

Then Bolsonaro managed to turn the governors against him and lost the support of some former supporters, such as Ronaldo Caiado, one of the symbols of the longstanding right-wing that stood next to the president.

As a result of all this, the presidency’s video, which has not yet been set for release, is adding fuel to the fire of the tug-of-war between the Planalto Presidency and the states, in which Congress is standing alongside the governors.

Source: Folhapress