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The commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force decided to put their positions at the disposal of the new Defense Minister, General Walter Braga Netto, in a meeting early in the morning on Tuesday (30).
They want to follow the departure of General Fernando Azevedo from the portfolio, who was dismissed by President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday after repeated denials of political support for the federal government.
According to an interlocutor from Azevedo, the limit of their relationship was reached as of last week, when Bolsonaro again hinted that he wanted the support of the Army to apply exceptional measures such as the state of defense in Federation units that apply blockades against the pandemic.
The relationship between the two had already been eroded by what an ally of the president described as a lack of political support from the Armed Forces, determined to move away from the uniforms that the federal government occupies.
For this ally, there is little recognition that Bolsonaro worked to maintain the benefits to the category with the social and administrative reform of the Forces, approved in 2019, in addition to guaranteeing investments in most of the priority war programs.
The problem was explained by Azevedo in his resignation letter, in which he omits that he was fired, but emphasizes that he sought to preserve the Armed Forces as instruments of the State, as opposed to the Bolsonarist idea of a militia that supports the government. .
The agreement between the commanders, who met with Azevedo and then held a meeting, was to hand over the position jointly. Braga Netto asked them to wait and meet on Tuesday.
If Edson Leal Pujol (Army), Ilques Barbosa (Navy) and Antônio Carlos Bermudez (Aeronautics) left together, this would have been unprecedented. The last two can stay, if Braga Netto convinces them to avoid further turbulence.
Pujol is the only one whose permanence is not speculated by anyone, given the degree of animosity between him and Bolsonaro. The president had already tried to remove him from office last year, as the leaf revealed.
It is a dispute that comes from last year, symbolized the day that Pujol offered his elbow to a handshake of the president. The commander called the Covid-19 effort the largest mission of its generation, while the chief promoted crowds and spoke of “fluzinha.”
This difference was accentuated. As head of the most important Force, it was up to Pujol to cross the line by saying at a conference that the military had to stay out of politics. The crisis continued with the insistence of General Eduardo Pazuello to remain active while he carried out his criticized management in the Ministry of Health.
With Bolsonaro’s new insinuations about the uses of what he called “my army,” dissatisfaction became evident, such as the leaf showed last week. Now, they overflowed.
In a subsequent meeting with members of the Army High Command, via videoconference, Pujol discussed the scenarios.
Based on the little that has transpired so far from the meeting, the Forces want to send a clear message to Braga Netto that they would not accept being used by Bolsonaro in any coup initiative.
One way to do this without suggesting insubordination is to sew on the names of the new commanders. In the FAB and the Navy the situation is relatively calm, since they are forces of less relative weight.
In the Army, the ideal debated would be the presentation of names with the consensual support of the High Command and that they were not very close to Bolsonarism. There is an issue that must be assessed, valued by the military, which is seniority.
Traditionally, the Minister of Defense presents three names for the president to choose for command, all of which are the oldest in the Force, and most of the time the one with the longest time in the barracks.
The oldest active four-star general is José Luiz Freitas. A strong name is that of the number 2 of the Force, Marco Antônio Amaro dos Santos, and there are quotes from a uniformed man who is not among the three largest, the commander of the Northeast, Marco Antônio Freire Gomes.
Whatever the outcome of the meeting on Tuesday, the truth is that Bolsonaro hired a threat of military crisis with his ministerial change on Monday. And the fourth (31) marks the 57th anniversary of the 1964 coup, a central and sensitive date in the Brazilian military calendar.
