US senators warn of Bolsonaro’s “democratic decline” in Brazil, say bilateral ties are in jeopardy

U.S. President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party senators on Tuesday warned against the “democratic decline“In Brazil by Jair Bolsonaro, stressing that if the Brazilian president you break the rules in elections October 2022, the bilateral relationship is threatened.

Brazilian far-right President, one of the main international allies of Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump, has said that Brazil could see scenes similar to the crowd of supporters of the former US president who stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6 seeking to avoid certification of the Democratic presidential victory.

In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Four influential Democratic senators stressed that “a change in the Brazilian constitutional order would endanger the very foundation” of relations between the two most populous nations on the American continent.

“We urge you to clarify that The United States supports Brazil’s democratic institutions and that any undemocratic break with the current constitutional order will have serious consequencesSaid the senators, including Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the upper house, and Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee.

US Senators expressed concern over Bolsonaro’s “increasingly dangerous” claims on the legislative elections of 2022, in which he plans to stand for re-election.

Bolsonaro has claimed, without evidence, that the voting system is open to fraud and said he would refuse to admit defeat if he loses.. “Only god takes me out of power“, noted.

“That kind of reckless language it is dangerous for any democracy, but it is above all undeserved in a democracy of the caliber of Brazil, that for decades it has shown itself capable of facilitating peaceful transfers of power, ”the senators wrote in their letter.

Also underlined Bolsonaro’s “personal attacks” against members of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the Supreme Court of Justice, stressing that they threaten to undermine the rule of law.

“Our association with Brazil must be a bulwark against anti-democratic actors, from China and Russia to Cuba and Venezuela,” senators told Blinken, urging him to do so. support for Brazilian democracy “a diplomatic priority“, including in Brazil’s participation in NATO and the OECD.

The government of Biden has been quiet in his public statements about Bolsonaro.

Blinken met last week on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly with Brazilian Foreign Minister Carlos Alberto França, in an appointment which a State Department official said was intended to encourage Bolsonaro, a skeptic of climate change, to meet Brazil’s objectives against global warming.

Brazil will be a crucial actor for the planet at the UN climate summit in Glasgow in November, due to the role of the Amazon as a CO2 sink.

Bolsonaro, whose approval rating has dropped in part because of the severe outbreak of COVID-19 in the South American giant, said that there is “no chance of a coup” in Brazil, although some supporters have called on the military to intervene to keep it in power.

“I will not interfere with the choice, you can rest assured», Assured Bolsonaro in a interview published in the magazine on Friday See.

(With information from AFP)

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