From Rio de Janeiro
This Saturday, in another of the many marches with Jesus – the one that attracted the most people – held in San Pablothe far-right president Jair Bolsonaro He insisted again on one of his favorite themes, the “war of good against evil”.
Once again he fired fiercely at issues that predominate in his pronouncements: “We are against abortion, against gender ideology, against the release of drugs, we are defenders of the Brazilian family.”
Up to this point, nothing new: Bolsonaro is one of the most ostensible defenders of ultra-conservative positions.
As usual, he warned about the risks of Brazil once again being a country “painted red.” He asked that “our country does not experience the pain of socialism”, and after mentioning Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and Colombia, he assured that “we do not want that for our Brazil”.
In front of a crowd kneeling in the street, he declared: “We are the majority in the country, the majority of good, and in this war of good against evil, good will win again.”
The problem is how good – read: Bolsonaro – intends to defeat evil, read former President Lula da Silva, outspoken favorite in all the polls related to the October elections.
Two days earlier, last Thursday, in another of his weekly internet broadcasts, the same Bolsonaro once again attacked the Brazilian electoral system, announcing once again that he will present evidence of the vulnerability of electronic ballot boxes “soon”. He also kept up his very violent shooting against the Superior Electoral Court and some members of the Federal Supreme Court, the highest instance of Justice.
It is worth remembering that since it was implemented, more than twenty years ago, no vestige of manipulation of the system has ever been detected. Bolsonaro, however, and shielded by his Defense Minister, the active general Paulo Sergio Nogueira, It continues to insist that a “parallel audit” be implemented to count the votes, which would be carried out by the Army. Otherwise, he announces that he will not recognize the result.
Recently, at a meeting with businessmen in Rio de Janeiro, retired General Walter Braga Netto, who held the Ministry of Defense and now appears as a vice-presidential candidate alongside Bolsonaro, said that without the audit demanded by the far-right “there will be no elections.” He then backed down. He forgot that it was recorded by one of those present.
“goodies”
At the same time that he raises the tone of his threats, Bolsonaro encourages his most radical followers – it is estimated that they correspond to 15 percent of the electorate – to remain “on permanent alert” to demand “auditable elections”. And he announces a series of “benefits” approved by Congress that emerged in the wake of his election in 2018, and considered the worst since the redemocratization of 1985.
Among the “benefits” there is a “Brazil aid” that will benefit some 40 million Brazilians with 120 dollars a month until December, in addition to a single bonus of 200 dollars to truckers for fuel.
Radically violating not only the electoral legislation but the Constitution itself, that distribution of money prohibited by law at election time it will be around the house of twelve billion dollars. They are resources diverted from the already corroded Education and Health budget, and they mean a huge hole that will further increase the already high inflation forecast for 2023.
Brazil today has a tremendous picture, as a result of the absolute lack of an economic and social policy on the part of the government. There are 53 million Brazilians in a state of poverty, and another thirteen million in extreme poverty. Of every four Brazilian children, only one eats three times a day.
Inflation has exceeded the eleven percent mark for a year, which means a growing erosion of family income.
Bolsonaro, however, ignores that painting. He insists, in his increasingly angry pronouncements, that the country is in a much better situation than the world’s leading economies. He reiterates that both fuel and food cost much less here than in the United States, England and Germany, forgetting that the average income in these countries is at least ten times higher than in Brazil.
The desperate insistence on staying in office has, in the case of Jair Bolsonaro, something more than the desire to cling to power.
He knows that without the immunity guaranteed by law to the president, his direct destiny will be Justice, and that it will be difficult for him to escape a harsh sentence for all the crimes he committed while sitting in the presidential chair.