Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro encourages anarchy in the …

From Rio de Janeiro. Since the resumption of democracy in Brazil in 1985 and after 21 years of military dictatorship, The military has not experienced periods of internal tension like those it faces under the presidency of far-right Jair Bolsonaro.

In the 2018 presidential elections, the military clearly sided with the far right. There was even an indirect intervention, but very clear, when The then army commander lobbied members of the Supreme Federal Court on the eve of a habeas corpus petition from former President Lula da Silva, outspoken favorite, to avoid being imprisoned.

Members of the Brazilian Supreme Court of Justice submitted to the pressure, and the rest is history.

There are at least six thousand men in uniform, between reformed and active, scattered throughout the government. With that, they add the benefits of the extra payments to their salary, and everyone is happy. Of the 22 current ministers, nine are retired soldiers. Since the dictatorship, there has never been such a proportion. In an Olympic incongruity, even the headquarters of the Civil House, which coordinates the government, is headed by a retired general.

Despite all this generosity with the uniforms, the extreme right has not achieved what it aspires most: an alliance with the high command of the army. All his efforts to politicize the commanders have failed. Worse: having kept an active general, Eduardo Pazuello, at the head of the Ministry of Health, in a gloomy administration, he caused immense unrest in the army, at the risk of being confused with the policy that provoked the genocide experienced by Brazil.

In March, irritated by the attitude of generals active in command posts who refused to come out in public to defend the policy he imposed during the pandemic, Bolsonaro abruptly removed his then defense minister, retired General Fernando Azevedo e Silva, who refused to put pressure on active commanders to defend their health policy. The three commanders immediately resigned, but the president ordered the new defense minister, a fully aligned retired general, to fire them, a measure of public humiliation.

Nothing, however, has reached the level of tension seen since last Monday, with Pazuello himself at the center of the hurricane once again.

Due to internal rules and regulations, active military personnel are absolutely prohibited from participating in political events. And the previous Saturday was precisely what Pazuello did: he joined a parade of motorcycles led by Bolsonaro, and at the end of the event he took the stage to, next to the president, address the audience.

The next day, the commander-in-chief of the army, General Paulo Sergio Nogueira, announced – as determined by the regulations of the weapon – the opening of an investigation. The expected sanction ranges from a warning to 30 days in prison.

Then began a section of ropes between the extreme right and the army high command. If Commander Nogueira does not follow what the regulations expressly determine, he loses his authority. If he goes ahead, the confrontation with Bolsonaro could have huge consequences.

The conclusion will be known in the coming days. Bolsonaro’s tendency is to keep stretching the rope. That of the army commanders, to find common ground: a clear but not extreme punishment, under Pazuello’s commitment to finally retire.

The tension, in any case, will continue to grow. Bolsonaro insists on calling the troops “my army” when it threatens to mobilize forces to prevent governors and mayors from imposing isolation and traffic restriction measures while the pandemic remains at its highest level. The discomfort aroused by the expression in the barracks is palpable.

Between his entry into the military academy and his expulsion after a formidable sequence of acts of indiscipline, which even landed him in prisons, Bolsonaro spent nearly 15 years in the army.

Between his election as an adviser and then his four terms of national deputy, plus the two and a half years as president, as a professional politician, he has more than double the time he had as a soldier.

However, he insists on remembering his status as a man in uniform. And there are more than enough indications that it is precisely that the point that bothers the current army high command the most: being identified with the worst and most absurd government in Brazilian history at all times.