Opinion: Are the state institutions and powers now beginning to abandon Bolsonaro?

By Juan Arias*

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) According to data and media analysis agency MAP,  President Jair Bolsonaro’s popularity on social media is the lowest since his election. Of 1.4 million posts made, only 10.8% contain positive mentions. Moreover, the proportion of Brazilians in favor of vaccines has risen to 86%, despite the president’s campaign to discourage people from getting vaccinated.

To top off the trend, governmental institutions – Congress, the Supreme Court, most state governors – as well as economists, business people and the financial market, have also realized the dire health situation in the country and decided to set in motion what could be called a virtual impeachment against the president, with the creation of a commission in charge of controlling the pandemic.

In this way, Bolsonaro is, in practice, forced out of health management. He remains in office as president but under control. His last speech to the nation was pathetic and was accompanied by the biggest uproar so far, amid cries of murderer and genocidal coming from the windows of homes.

His speech, in which he presented himself as the vaccine’s greatest advocate, was so disastrous that as many as 14 lies were detected in it, compared to all his previous statements in which he mocked the pandemic, the dead, and the vaccine – about which he said that if they took it, men could become alligators and women could grow beards. And he had already stated, on more than one occasion, that he would not get vaccinated.

We don’t know if he, who has so often threatened military coups, has yet realized that he was the object of what could be called a “white” or “soft” coup, supported by all the other institutions of the State and the so-called de facto powers.

It is really a shame for Brazil to see the negative image that the country has in the world. The foreign media, radio, TV, and newspapers qualify Brazil as “the worst country in the world”. Reading these reports, today’s Brazil is reminiscent of Middle Ages cities plagued by a disease from which everyone fled.

Foreign media outlets hear from doctors and nurses of dramatic scenes, such as the case of the patient who, faced with a lack of anesthetic, had to be tied to the bed to be intubated. Or the case of patients whose lungs had to be pumped out manually with silicone valves. Or the doctors and nurses tormented in their sleep by the knowledge that the next day they would have to choose whom to save and whom to let die.

The scene of a daughter crying, hugging her mother who had been chosen to die is heartbreaking. So are thousands of soul-wrenching dramas.

In the political field, the most important and significant is that the white coup against the president was carried out while the country’s Armed Forces maintained total silence – including the generals who directly participate in his government.

They have kept silent even in the face of strong pressure in the Senate from Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, one of the most important cabinet members, in charge of representing the country before the rest of the world. Senators are shouting for him to resign from his post since he has proved incapable of fulfilling his important mission and is creating serious problems for Brazil with the major world powers.

All the institutions that seemed anesthetized by the fascist myth, incapable of reacting to the genocide suffered by the country, seem to have awakened to say, “enough!” They have found the formula to contain a president who seemed insensitive to the nation’s pain and the economic crisis that is hitting the poorest people hard, with galloping inflation that leaves them without even food for their children.

It will be necessary to see, in coming weeks, whether Bolsonaro understands that he has been sidelined in the management of the pandemic, and what his reaction will be. If he tries to rebel, it remains clear how the forces that abandoned him will react. For now, even his main ally, the president of the Chamber of Deputies Arthur Lira, has already hinted that the parliamentary impeachment to remove him from power, for which there are more than 50 requests, can be unleashed at any time.

Until now, leaders have seen that their boat is sinking and are already thinking of abandoning him for fear of dying politically with him. Everything leads one to believe that the country’s leadership situation has entered a national and international crisis. Even those who protected the president, often for personal interests, are starting to distance themselves from him.

The question now remains as to how the ideologically more extremist wing of Bolsonarism will react when it sees its “mito” transformed into a hostage of other institutions. In any case, this sector will have to understand that its idol is losing its battle and that the other powers have lost the fear they seemed to be trapped in.

The next decisions will be crucial for the root and branch of violent Bolsonarism. In any case, this wing’s members cannot fail to see that their myth has begun to swim in bitter and dangerous waters. What is more serious for them is that the military generals do not seem willing to go to war to save the former captain, from whom perhaps they themselves wish to save themselves before the follies of the one who now feels he is their boss, before whom the whole Army should kneel, fall on their backs.

Or will there be other surprises yet? Brazil seems to be on the verge of an erupting volcano that threatens to devour it. Meanwhile, the pandemic victims are growing every day, and people are dying alone, abandoned, and asphyxiated in hospital corridors. This is in a country with one of the best public health systems in the world , which specializes in free vaccination campaigns. What is poisoning the country is political negligence, about which the country, until yesterday, seemed anesthetized.

Perhaps a light is beginning to appear. This is the dream of the 220 million Brazilians who anxiously await the arrival of the vaccine that bloody political and ideological intrigues had paralyzed.

Juan Arias is a journalist and writer with works translated into more than 15 languages. He is the author of books such as ‘Magdalena’, ‘Jesus this Great Unknown’, ‘José Saramago: The Possible Love’, among many others. He has worked for EL PAÍS since 1976. He was the newspaper’s correspondent in the Vatican and Italy for almost two decades and lived and wrote in Brazil since 1999.