Opinion: The Ambassador, the Centrão, and the Semi-presidential Express. All Aboard in Brazil?

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) On his way out the door, U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Todd Chapman, who is taking early retirement, said in an interview with Estadão newspaper, “Democracy is rock-solid in Brazil, the cancer is corruption.” Continuing this theme, he said,”The problems in Brazil are the Mensalão [monthly graft to lawmakers], the skimming of billions from Petrobras, the Lava Jato, Odebrecht bribes….”

Then he added his conclusion: “For us, democracy is nonnegotiable, and Brazil is a super-democratic country. All those who have forecast the end of democracy in Brazil, have always erred.”

“For us?” Us who? Either (1) Ambassador Chapman knows something we do not; or (2) he knows next to nothing about today’s Brazil. We favor Option 1, for the reasons set out below.

Chapman’s “adios” interview shows that he knows well Bolsonaro’s election strategy, past and future. The ambassador homes in on cases of corruption – specifically Mensalão, Petrobras, Lava Jato, and Odebrecht – all of which occurred on ex-President Lula’s watch.

Bolsonaro’s 2018 campaign was largely about disparaging Lula and PT as corrupt.  Bolsonaro’s 2022 campaign will also largely be about disparaging Lula and PT as corrupt: he will look to the past to avoid a future Lula presidency.

Chapman has lots of company looking at the past. The military hierarchs ensconced in Bolsonaro’s administration, almost to a man (there are no women generals), are determinedly opposed to Lula returning to power. Their threats – not to hold elections, or to deny their validity – presuppose a Lula victory. Many even wish the future could resemble the post-1964 “revolution”, when Lula was jailed.

Arthur Lira, the President of the lower house of Congress, and generally acknowledged as leader of the informal right-wing Centrão party coalition now controlling the Legislative Branch, last week proposed adopting “semi-presidentialism” as Brazil’s system of government, starting in 2022! [He backtracked later by saying 2026 would be okay.]

Commentators all across the political spectrum have recognized this proposal as a ploy, designed by Lira to ensure that Lula, if elected President, would have little power to govern. Under a semi-presidential regime, a legitimately installed Prime Minister, backed by an official coalition of right-thinking parties, would govern Brazil.

In short, Lira has proposed the institutionalization of the Centrão; cagily, he is also hedging his bets. He knows that, under a semi-presidential regime, if Lula does not win in 2022, the Centrão could control an unruly Bolsonaro and his military cohort.

Lira’s right-wing party PP, short for “Progressistas” (try not to snicker), is said to want Bolsonaro to join its ranks in time for the 2022 election. In the meantime, PP’s president, Senator Ciro Nogueira, is set to become Bolsonaro’s Chief of Staff – the most powerful cabinet position, in charge of liaison with the legislature.

Nogueira will replace an active-duty general, sidelined to the Presidential General Secretariat. The general’s reaction, when told of his inchoate firing, was to say he had been “run over by a train”.

If there is a train, it is political:  the Semi-presidential Centrão Express, whose engineer and fireman are Arthur Lira and Ciro Nogueira. The question for Brazil is whether Bolsonaro even realizes he may have to settle for becoming a mere train conductor, assigning upper or lower berths to sleeping car passengers, many of whom are old soldiers hankering for another war.

“All aboard?”