Jair Bolsonaro extended his power over the Senate | …

From Brasilia

Democracy in decline. Jair Bolsonaro expanded his power over the Senate where ruling party Rodrigo Pacheco was elected president for a two-year term. The victory was resounding, Pacheco, of the conservative Democratic Party (Dem), obtained 57 votes against 21 for the right Simone Tebet, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB). The result was known at the end of the day on Monday afternoon when preparations were made for the election of the leader of the deputies where the favorite Arthur Lira, also a Bolonarian.

The center of attention, and non-Republican disputes, was on the lower house since it is the chamber with the power to initiate an impeachment.

Lira’s probable victory will destroy, in the short term, the opening of the debate on the prosecution of the most powerful far-right leader in the region, which Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has defined as the new benchmark of Trumpism without Trump.

The last two impeachment demands – there are more than sixty of them – have been supported by the Workers’ Party (PT) and other leftist forces, and by a sector of the Catholic Church. unites with Protestant groups unrelated to electronic churches and theologian Leonardo Boff. Both projects consider that the president could have committed genocide by ignoring the coronavirus pandemic that has killed 225,000 people and infected 9.2 million.

The favorite lira belongs to the Progressive Party (PP) – a right-wing party that holds the record for being the one with the most corruption complaints in Congress. He predicted that the impeachment trial would not continue as it is seen as a factor of “instability”.

From his point of view, which is that of the Planalto Palace, it is necessary to guarantee the order (or the regime) established from the authoritarian conception of a retired captain whose supporting party is the Armed Forces , which do not have parliamentary representation, nor voted, but they control the most important ministries.

General Eduardo Ramos, Minister of the Government, was one of the articulators of the candidacies of Senator Pacheco and Deputy Lira, an operation during which some three billion reais (approximately $ 580 million) of State resources were raised. been negotiated for the benefit of members of Congress., according to press estimates. In other words, $ 580 million to buy votes.

Within the legislature, the strength of Bolonarism is supported by the faithful banks of the Bala and the Bible, linked respectively to the police and to the evangelical corporations. MPs and MPs today held an act in support of Lira’s candidacy in which there were prayers and gospel singing.

The majority who prayed did so without a chinstrap, following the Bolonarist credo which opposes this gadget and social distancing, and is wary of vaccines, especially China, a country accused of having generated covid- 19 in the context of bacteriological warfare.

Contrary to what these lively andhe Congress was the scene of a war between right-wing factions, which put aside pure neo-fascist Bolonarianism, against groups led by the outgoing leader of the deputies, Rodrigo Maia (Dém), promoter of Baleia’s candidacy Rossi (MDB).

Maia expresses a current which, after having supported the coup d’état against Dilma Rousseff and the election of Bolsonaro, seems to have been disappointed.

It was so Maia appointed MP Baleia Rossi to the presidency of the House between 2021 and 2023 with the support of a broad coalition, hegemonized by the right, in which the PT and the Partido Comunista do Brasil (PCdoB) participated. This membership of the Maia coalition provoked intense debates within the PT, where the line he considered a priority to obtain the victory of Baleia Rossi was imposed to contain authoritarian debauchery and nourish the possibilities of a dismissal.

Despite the probable defeat of this Baleia Rossi, and with it the attempt to create resistance in Parliament, this weekend, new caravans were indicted in São Paulo, Brasilia and other capitals. They were protagonists of left-wing parties, unions and social movements. There have also been other recent marches and cacerolazos, called by a fringe of the middle class who voted for Bolsonaro in his day, and they have had enough of barbarism. Three polls published in January confirm the deterioration of the presidential image.

If this discontent is still sufficiently dispersed, if it regains control of the streets, it could dismiss a Congress docile to the government.