Army breaks away from Bolsonaro government amid worst health crisis in Brazilian history

Jair Bolsonaro’s triumph in 2018 made Eduardo Vilas Boas, then head of the Brazilian army, believe that there was an opportunity to show the management capacity of the army and reconstruct the image of the uniform three decades after the end of the dictatorship. I fell into a trap. He engaged the Armed Forces with their participation in an unpredictable government that created the worst social crisis in the country’s history with its denial of the Covid pandemic that has already left 315,000 dead and it threatens to end in a capital tragedy. The military ended up having 10 ministries and 6,000 others hold positions at all levels of administration. Vilas Boas had to leave in January 2019. Bolsonaro was impossible to control. Since then, the new military leaders have sought a way out of the maze they had entered as the president pressured them to support them in their non-politics to deal with the pandemic. It all ended predictably, with the worst politico-military crisis since 1977: the resignation of the Minister of Defense and the three commanders of the armed forces.

The military leaders were very concerned about the president’s authoritarian actions. Bolsonaro wanted to force the military to support him with exceptional measures in his battle against governors who order lockdowns, close shops, schools and beaches to reduce coronavirus infections. In particular, what the president said in a speech on March 8 fell very badly: “My army is not going to force people to stay at home.” The men in uniform were unwilling to use force to avoid closures, let alone accept that “my” imperative that turned them into puppets of Bolsonaro’s will. “Against the Constitution, we will do nothing”, was the response under the command of the commanders.

The generalate never wanted Bolsonaro. They followed the commander’s orders and joined the government. But they are still wary of the former captain who retired after being acquitted of insubordination. He had led a demonstration to demand better wages and threatened an uprising. Since then he has sympathies with the lower ranking military and the military police, but never with the generals. The new Defense Minister, Walter Braca Netto, is not exactly a leader among the officers and is unlikely to change this feeling of rejection towards the president.

With the health network overwhelmed by Covid, the suspension of emergency aid for the most disadvantaged, the political rehabilitation of former President Lula da Silva and the disgrace of his former political ally, Judge Sergio Moro, last week, the government crisis could be seen coming. There was talk of some changes in the cabinet as is customary in the Bolsonaro government: it made 24 ministerial changes. Health and education are in their fourth title. But the departure on Monday of his friend, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ernesto Araújo, precipitated the “rupture” with its main allies, the military.

Bolsonaro unceremoniously sacked Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo after a meeting of less than five minutes and after months of tension between the two. Nothing like this had been seen since then de facto president Ernesto Geisel ousted the military minister during the dictatorship. The commanders could not absorb such rudeness and sent their letters of resignation. Some believe that took advantage of the situation to abandon a drifting vessel in danger of sinking. “It’s a deep crisis and it encompasses both the military and the government. It is the first time that something like this has happened since re-democratization. We will now have to see how Bolsonaro comes out of it. It seems that he will no longer be able to count on the military, at least as he had done so far, ”declared João Roberto Martins Filho, defense specialist.

The departure of Foreign Minister Araújo is also very significant. Hundreds of bankers and economists had demanded his head in a public letter in which they reproached him for not having obtained doses of vaccines in the producing countries. Araújo has been shown throughout his tenure as a staunch admirer of former US President Donald Trump. The new Chancellor, Carlos França, is a career diplomat considered moderate and pragmatic. He has two titanic tasks ahead of him, the first being the urgency of gain political support for the arrival of larger quantities of vaccines. And the other, more deeply, is that of reverse the image of the “pariah country” in which Bolsonaro converted Brazil with his far-right positions and his denial of the pandemic which, as the World Health Organization has stated, “puts the whole world in danger”.

The third important ministerial replacement is that of the secretary of the government, who is mainly responsible for relations with Congress. This is where Bolsonaro has his new allies, the deputies and senators of “The old policy” that so much denounced. It is known as the “centrão”, the great center, a party conglomerate of ideologically-less territorial leaders who shamelessly offer parliamentary support to the highest bidder in exchange for big-budget posts. The new minister in charge of this portfolio is MEP Flávia Arruda, who joins the cabinet as a representative of this constellation of acronyms. Bolsonaro asks that in return the presidents of the two chambers, both of the Centrão, protect him and his four children from corruption investigations who advises you while doing questionable business and dozens of impeachment petitions who are being processed in Congress.

It is likely that with this massive departure from the government, the armed forces could, in some way, wash – albeit marginally – their image as co-responsible for the enormous health and social crisis in which the country is plunged. But they will not be able to completely detach themselves from the Bolsonaro government. Until now, the military has been the mainstay of the government and most of them keep their posts.

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