Cornered, Jair Bolsonaro changed six ministers …

From Brasilia

At once. Jair Bolsonaro sacked six ministers on Monday, including Defense Minister General Fernando Azevedo e Silva and Foreign Relations Minister Ernesto Araújo. There have also been changes in the portfolios of justice, the civil house (chief of staff), the government and the legal adviser of the Union. Strictly speaking, there are seven changes since a week ago the Minister of Health, General Eduardo Pazuello, had fallen, replaced by Doctor Marcelo Queiroga.

Ministerial reform occurs when president is cornered by pandemic which claimed the lives of just under 314,000 people and infected 12.5 million. In addition to facing international isolation for having become a head of state who threatens global health security while being harassed by a Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who was ready to run in the October elections of the next year with chances of victory (yes there is).

The new government team is the child of the wear and tear of an administration that has just turned two years and two months with the president’s popularity in decline coupled with the deterioration of his alliance with the front of the so-called “Centrao” conservative parties, under whose command are the chambers of senators and deputies. The legislative chambers which can give the green light to a possible commission of inquiry into the measures against the coronavirus and / or authorize the opening of an indictment.

On Monday, two days before the anniversary of the 1964 coup, which will surely be commended with praise, so many changes were announced so sudden that it is difficult to weigh them as a whole. It will take a few days to prepare a reading on the new reality and sketch what is to come.

It’s clear the new cabinet says Bolsonaro had to cede to the Centrao but that didn’t tame him. Not even close. The former captain keeps his will to trigger the crisis alive – its ingredients are unemployment, social isolation from the virus and a ridiculous state subsidy – until it leads to the chaos he hopes to profit from. A fire in which the self-defense militias operating in several states, such as Rio de Janeiro or Bahia, would play an important role.

The captain and the generals

The most important news of the day was the fall of General Fernando Azevedo e Silva, head of Defense. replaced by his comrade in arms, Walter Souza Braga Netto. According to parliamentary sources told this newspaper, Bolsonaro demanded, without warning, the departure of the general who would later issue a formal note with a paragraph of high political density.

The outgoing minister thanked the trust placed in him and claimed to have performed his duties with complete “loyalty” to the president, but a few paragraphs below present themselves of interest. The former minister wrote that during his little more than two years as chief of defense, “I preserved the armed forces as institutions of the state”.

In recent months, it has become apparent that sections of the generalate have been watching closely the “politicization” of military corporations, in particular troops and junior officers, promoted by Bolsonaro, a retired captain.

This proselytizing not only makes part of the generalate uncomfortable, but also rekindles its old contempt for this Bolsonaro who, in the 1980s, was prosecuted by military justice for having planned bombings as a request increase in salary, which resulted in his “” white expulsion from the force.

It is likely that the letter written by the former chief of defense, Azevedo, was approved by the commander of the army, General Edson Pujol, a soldier who likes to be called an institutionalist (even if this should be taken with caution) and who did not hide his differences in the face of the president’s activism.

It is not a division between the democratic generals and the coup captains. By the way, society was ignorant of the coup that toppled Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and actively supported Lula’s ban in 2018, which paved the way for Bolsonaro to power.

Even former minister Azevedo e Silva was appointed virtual auditor of the Supreme Federal Court in 2018, to ensure that Lula was kept in prison. and deprived of all political rights, including giving interviews during the election campaign.

It happens, of course, that the high command of the army, or part of it, is unwilling to participate in the usually mentioned riots promoted by Bolsonaro to give way to a state of siege or a state of defense.

The last pretext cited by the president is to prevent governors from decreeing social isolation against covid, which he compares to “states of siege” typical of a dictatorship. A contradiction, coming from Bolsonaro.

The departure of Azevedo e Silva surprised the high command of the armed forces, whose leaders held an emergency meeting in which the resignation of the three commanders was reportedly analyzed, the newspaper reported. Or Globe.

Miss Trump

The only resignation that came without surprise was that of Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, this was given as safe from Sunday evening due to the crisis unleashed with the Senate.

Araújo will be replaced by another career diplomat, Carlos Alberto Franca, special advisor to the president since October 2020 and in front of this head of the ceremony of the Planalto Palace.

The resignation was presented at noon on Monday at the Planalto Palace, and it was the end point of a crisis sparked last week when the far-right diplomat quoted a Latin phrase from Benito Mussolini in the Senate.

His downfall was a defeat for Bolsonaro and his son, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, who was in effect the Shadow Chancellor.

The underlying reason was not the Latin verses but Araújo’s opposition to negotiating the purchase of vaccines abroad, an attitude he adopted following direct orders from the president.

The resignation of Araújo, a full-fledged Bolonarian (and fundamentalist) was celebrated by the majority of members of Congress, government officials and opponents.

The President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, and the Leader of the Deputies, Arthur Lira, the two ruling members, have demanded the departure of the Chancellor, as have other members of Congress who have threatened to impeach the outgoing minister. And they hinted that they weren’t ruling out the idea of ​​a political trial against Bolsonaro himself.

After being widowed by its creator, Donald Trump, Bolsonaro lost his diplomatic compass, being isolated, while Brazil acquired the status of a global epidemiological bomb. A bomb that can sweep South America and, by projection, the planet.

Without a program to face the Itamaraty Palace, Araújo gained notoriety, not prestige, for a libel that emerged in 2017 where he characterized Trump as the savior of the West in a crusade against cultural Marxism. A Gramscian upside down. Its enemies are the UN, the WHO, gender equality and the communist threat behind any criticism of the military dictatorship.

With that sidelong glance, Araújo blamed the Chinese government last year when the coronavirus pandemic emerged, following the scenario dictated by the Bolsonaros, On the verge of delirium, he attributed the disease to a plot in which even the Communist Party Chinese would be involved.

These statements, along with others by Eduardo Bolsonaro, sparked the rare anger of Ambassador Yang Wanming, who, in effect, suspended relations with Araújo.

It would come just when Brazil needs vaccine diplomacy the most to access the Asian giant’s drugs.