Jair Bolsonaro threatens military crackdown | …

The far-right president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, said that “the order will be followed” if you decide to tell the country’s armed forces to take to the streets. Some already fear that the former army captain, who has come under fire on several fronts, is paving the way to disrupt a peaceful handover of power during the next presidential elections year, Bolsonaro, gave the clearest signal on Friday that he was ready to deploy the army on the streets of the country.

As the coronavirus crisis grows in Brazil, its president has rejected both the virus itself and measures to contain it, warning in recent weeks of suspected social chaos and unrest he attributes to locally imposed restrictions on movement and commerce by states and cities. Speaking in a TV interview, Bolsonaro said “I won’t go into the details of what I’m up to,” but warned that “If we have any problems, we have a plan to enter the field. The forces could one day come out on the streets.”.

According to Bolsonaro, such a decision would be for “restore article 5 of the Constitution“, which refers to the individual rights of the Brazilian population, reported Or balloon. Comments by Bolsonaro, who has long praised Brazil’s two-decade military dictatorship, will do little to calm critics worried about his politicization of the military. Others are concerned about his commitment to a peaceful handover of power in the event of a close result in next year’s presidential election.

Having supported the conspiracies of Donald trump After a stolen election last year, which culminated in the deadly assault by supporters of the former US president on the Capitol in Washington DC, Bolsonaro has also made unsubstantiated allegations of future voter fraud in Brazil since his election in 2018. Criticism, Bolsonaro currently finds itself increasingly under fire from criticism, the Senate having recently launched an investigation into his handling of the pandemic and talks more and more about his possible indictment.

Meanwhile, the stars appear to be lining up for his most dangerous political rival, the former president. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, competing with the president in 2022., Brazil’s Supreme Court this week upheld last month’s ruling that the controversial judge Sergio Moro, who was later appointed Bolsonaro’s justice minister, had shown bias in convicting Lula da Silva of corruption in 2017. The conviction, which prevented the leftist politician from challenging Bolsonaro in 2018, was overturned by the court in ground for the proceedings in March, and a Supreme Court judge classified Lula da Silva’s corruption investigation as “the biggest legal scandal in the country’s history”.

A few days later, when a public opinion poll suggested that Lula da Silva could draw half of Brazilian votes and 12 points more than Bolsonaro, the former president criticized his current successor’s approach to the pandemic as “foolish”, saying “this country has no government”, and ridiculing the lack of available vaccines, which Bolsonaro is now trying to get urgently.

Often pitting his supporters in the Supreme Court and Senate, Bolsonaro sought to assert increasing control over the Brazilian armed forces during his tenure, appoint various military officers to ministerial positions and many more across government.

“If we also consider some second and third level bureaucratic positions, we are talking about thousands, even tens of thousands of military personnel, active or retired, who are now part of the Brazilian government,” he said. Guilherme Casaroes, political scientist and professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation School of Public Administration. “It’s very, very different from what we’ve had over the past 35 years. One of the cornerstones of our civilian democracy was precisely to keep the military out of politics. So by bringing them back to politics, Bolsonaro himself who is a former army captain, I think he’s trying to send a message to all his political opponents, ”he said.

But Brazil’s armed forces are in crisis, and commanders of its army, air force and navy resigned last month after Bolsonaro sacked his defense minister and longtime ally Gen. Fernando Azevedo e Silva. “Most likely, what Bolsonaro ordered was to put the military on the streets of states or towns where governors or mayors have decided on some sort of local social restriction,” Prof Rezende said.

*Of The independent From Great Britain. Special for Page 12

Translation: Celita Doyhambéhère