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Amid the coronavirus pandemic, President Jair Bolsonaro forced the removal of two of his top ministers. The first to leave was Luiz Henrique Mandetta (DEM-MS), from Health. And, last Friday, Sergio Moro, of Justice and Public Security. The dismissal of the former popular judge, the main star of Operation Lava Jato and responsible for the conviction of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) for corruption, raised a political crisis forged by Bolsonaro, who is betting on further radicalizing his rhetoric while boycotting efforts to maintain social isolation. Is Brazil heading for another accusation or another dictatorship?
For the philosopher Marcos Nobre, professor at UNICAMP and president of the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP), Bolsonaro is taking refuge in his most radical voter base while trying to negotiate with the center in Parliament to have time. But he believes it is a matter of time before he is removed from office. “Bolsonaro goes to the canvas and he knows it,” he explains in an interview with EL PAÍS. He believes Bolsonaro’s popularity will come down to his most radical electorate, but he points out that this alone does not guarantee a social majority for removal. This happens, insists that the main democratic forces renegotiate the rules of democratic coexistence. “Otherwise, we will continue to produce Bolsonaros. There is no use simply getting the guy out.”
Question After Bolsonaro’s election, you went so far as to tell EL PAÍS that his government was made up of fiefdoms. One of them was Sergio Moro, who now leaves his position shooting heavily at the president. The implosion of this fief represents what for the government and for the Bolsonarista base itself.
Answer. The fact that Bolsonaro fires Moro is as important as the fact that he does so now. This dismissal has several functions. Today we have a series of deaths due to the coronavirus that is standard in Spain. And we are not discussing the level of despair we are going to, because we have been discussing the political crisis all day. So there is an important fun element. Another important aspect is that Bolsonaro realized that the pandemic will affect his government. So far, he has about a third of the electorate, according to polls, and he knows he will not be able to maintain that participation. So, he decides to make a retreat move to protect himself at his core of fanatical support. According to Datafolha, it represents approximately 12% of the electorate. His reasoning is that there will be an economic crisis and that they will charge him, so it is better to guarantee the minimum base of support. Part of that constituency that he will lose is with Moro. The former minister was a symbol of an expansion of this pocket base from 12% to 30% of the electorate. But, from the moment Bolsonaro retires to the initial 12%, he chooses to form a war government. And in a war government, you can’t have a person who is bigger than you. This explains taking Mandetta and also explains taking Moro. Get rid of all these people.
Q. Polls still show Bolsonaro with at least a third of the electorate. How long before there is a fall?
R. We have a hard time comparing research. Since surveys are conducted remotely, we cannot make a good comparison. But the tendency is to go downhill and in a matter of months it will be reduced to that hard core. Quick in politics is a matter of two months. And that time has to be used by the political forces to speak. This is the point that I think is essential. We are isolated and there is an enormous difficulty in communication, political negotiation. Bolsonaro has this time and this difficulty to see if he negotiates with the centão.
Q. Is an eventual drop in popularity enough to topple the President?
R. There is no point in reducing yourself to 12%, 10% or 8% of the electorate. It is also necessary to form an overwhelming majority by distance. In Datafolha’s latest poll, most disapproved of his attitude during the pandemic, but at the same time he is against resignation. This shows that a majority is not born spontaneously. Even so, the possibility of forming this majority in favor of impeachment is great. But there are obstacles, such as divisions in the democratic field, between the right and the left, for example. It is very evident that Rodrigo Maia will not accept a request from the left. And the left would be forced to negotiate with the right to support a request for impeachment that came from a figure seen as a center and not a potential candidate. Like a former STF minister or a former justice minister.
Q. Is this political agreement viable? Until now, the PT has resisted supporting a political judgment in the National Congress.
R. The agreement to remove the president must take place not only between political forces, but also in society. This overwhelming majority is not spontaneous, only when people decide to negotiate. And what kind of agreement is that? Today’s left wonders what can be gained from the dismissal and leave the [vice-presidente Hamilton] Mourão in power. Allowing the right to understand each other is a serious political mistake, because Brazilian institutions are in ruins, and allowing Bolsonaro to remain president is allowing destruction to continue. At the same time, it has a positive side: my reading is that the PT refuses to support impeachment because it wants to wait for a consistent request that comes from a central figure, above the electoral dispute. It could be ex-STF ministers Sepúlveda Pertence, Carlos Ayres Brito, Nelson Jobim … And, for the left to support Mourão to become president, he needs to know that he is negotiating, that his government is not one of continuity and ultra-liberal. If the exit is to the right and cannot occupy power, then it is necessary to set limits. It is a complex negotiation that involves renegotiating democracy and the rules of political coexistence. It cannot happen that one part of the political system gives the other to the lions and turns the political game into a game of destruction for the adversary. What must return is the rule of coexistence. This is what allows a political judgment to free us from Bolsonaro. Otherwise, the structure remains the same and will continue to produce other Bolsonaros.
Q. The streets are impossible to occupy, but we have seen pots called by different sectors of society, from left to right. Is it the beginning of a broad front, at least in society?
R. It is a symptom of the formation of this front. But when this is achieved, our differences can be very large, but we must agree that Bolsonaro represents a threat to the country. The differences can be enormous, but that at the time of the elections everyone defends his positions. This coexistence has not existed in Brazil for six years. Politics has become a no man’s land. Part of the electorate uses elections as a weapon aimed at the head of another part of the electorate. You have to get the gun out of the deal. And the moment demands that people stop blaming others for everything. We blame the left, Lula, Temer, the elites, the evangelicals … If this does not end or does not decrease to a level that we can talk about, we will continue to produce Bolsonaros. There’s no use just getting the guy out.
Q. What did Moro’s statement mean for the impeachment debate? Do the accusations that Bolsonaro wants to politically interfere with the Federal Police materialize the risk for democracy that is talked about so much?
R. This is evident to me, but not only from this manifestation of Moro. It is at work as a whole. He said during the campaign that the model of democracy was the model of the dictatorship. And he not only spoke during the campaign, he always said that this was where he wanted to go. The statement is just one more proof of what Bolsonaro intended to do, but cannot do now because he was hit by a pandemic. Bolsonaro was not in the institutions’ straitjackets, he was gathering forces. And Moro’s speech reveals all that. Now, let’s be clear: Moro even greeted the PT and opened the impeachment fan. It was a fully thought-out mention. For me, now is a matter of time and how much the country will suffer before doing so. Even eliminating someone who is doing so much harm to the country cannot be done immediately. We are in an isolated condition in which all our efforts are focused on the health crisis. All of these conversations take time.
Q. What does Bolsonaro mean to fire Moro, reduce his support base and, at the same time, negotiate with the centão?
R. Discarding Moro is an additional advantage to negotiate with the centão. It says “I got rid of Moro, so you can rest easy and we can reach an agreement.” But Bolsonaro has a problem there: he may be able to convince this more fanatical base that an agreement with the centão is necessary to preserve the mandate, but is this base sufficient to avoid impeachment? No. It is a very small base. He remains exposed to the accusation. At the same time, it is not because he has a small base that an overwhelming majority is formed in favor of his departure. You need to avoid an overwhelming majority of more than 2/3 in Parliament to get it out. And for that it needs the support that only the centão can give, reach an agreement and try to strengthen the centão in the municipal elections. For that, it needs to aggravate the fiscal crisis. So the general [e ministro-chefe da Casa Civil] Braga Netto came up with this economic program that nobody knows where it came from or knows what it is about. That was only to say that a negotiation with the centão is underway and, therefore, this government no longer has Paulo Guedes’ agenda. At that time he was dismissed from his duties.
Q. Is the agreement with the centão viable? Bolsonaro has already proven himself not to be a reliable negotiator … The MDB has already released a note saying he does not want to hold government positions.
R. We have to think that the centers are also many. There is the strategic center, in the medium and long term, and there is the center that will take advantage of what is here for as long as it has. When Roberto Jefferson enters the parade, it is the kiss of death for any president. He could not only kill Lula, but he managed to kill Fernando Collor and he will manage to kill Bolsonaro. It is at that moment that the vultures arrive to catch the carrion that exists during the time that it exists. And six months on a job is six months.
Another important figure in all of this is Mayor Rodrigo Maia. It will not support impeachment without this great agreement between the political forces. Much conversation is needed. You must ensure that the municipal elections have a minimum of equity, that nobody kills anyone … Now, it was the military wing that entered and did this negotiation with the center. It is very possible that they have made this negotiation, which is also valid for Mourão. They may be thinking about the future, negotiating on behalf of Bolsonaro an agreement that is worth Mourão. The military wing must also get rid of this problem.
Q. What are the chances that Bolsonaro will survive?
R. The chance of survival is very low. If Bolsonaro is reduced to the specialized carrion center, he is dead. To spread to power, you need to negotiate. But no one trusts him. When General Santos Cruz reached an agreement with the centão, what did Bolsonaro do? He fired Santos Cruz. This year, when you agreed on the budget, what did you do? He broke the deal. It follows the logic of allowing the deal to be made, of winding up and then pulling the rope around the neck of those who are negotiating to hang the neck. But now he doesn’t have the ability to pull any rope. But at the same time, it has no choice but to radicalize. We are only at the beginning of the health and economic disaster. What is coming is much worse, for a simple reason: we did everything by halves. The government has not taken the isolation measures it should have taken, nor the financial measures necessary for isolation. This type of combination means the prolongation of our misfortune. Bolsonaro goes to the canvas and knows it.
Q. Bolsonaro proved to be a leader unable to deal with the crisis?
R. It bothers me a little when the person says he is stupid or crazy. So it is very easy to explain. But what explains why he took the steps he took and became one of the four coronavirus denialists worldwide? He looked and saw that there was no way out: if you decide to reorganize the system and run it, your speech ends, everything you have said so far. Defending the country would be electoral fraud. His method is chaos. And he adapted this method, allowing the system to reorganize to some extent, with Mandetta organizing a centralization of the health system, but at the same time, attacking isolation and measures that would end his rule.
Q. A coup with the support of the military seems unlikely at this time. But Bolsonarism is very strong in the military police bases and in the army barracks … How threatening is this? Could there be some kind of insurgency or police riot as it happened in Ceará on a large scale?
R. This was always on the horizon because Bolsonaro always made it clear that the objective was to strike. He created the entire base in the public and private security forces. But Moro’s fall is also a major fracture in this area of safety. The despair of the hate office is precisely when they see that they are losing their way on social media for a long time. And now they are taking a 7 to 1 wash. This does not mean that this base no longer has a belligerent and insurrectional disposition. You can maintain this fan base, who can commit isolated acts, but the breeding ground you were creating is missing, which was the breeding ground of 1964. That is, a general who orders a certain sector leaves with the first row. tanks Still, the risk to democracy remains. If there is no renegotiation of democracy, Bolsonaro will leave the impeachment as a victim, as a martyr, as someone in power. It should be constructed in a way more similar to Collor’s indictment, with minimal agreement.
Sergio Moro’s political future
Q. Moro made a candidate statement?
R. Yes, he made a speech for a candidate, for someone who is now going to an American university, a year goes by and then he comes back to be a candidate, I don’t know what. This is also unclear. It was very cheap for Moro, because nobody is going to take stock of what he really did, which is nothing. He leaves without committing himself to the deaths, at the hands of Mandetta. The fact that he spends 40 minutes talking meticulously shows that he is taking advantage of his available time, in addition to responding to Bolsonaro on the networks. The more they talk about him, the more he can return triumphant. At the same time, your game is not without losses.
Q. What do you lose when you leave office?
R. What goes for Mandetta goes for Moro. There is a part of Moro that he also owed to Bolsonaro. And that he will lose. Not because they are supporters of Bolsonaro, but because they will identify him with Bolsonaro. He will have to become a public figure who has neither the judiciary nor the government behind him. When you have a structure behind, it is easier. But now it has to be relevant without anyone supporting it. If you are a senatorial candidate, it is another logic. But to run for president, you must first demonstrate that you can lean on in the public sphere. Luciano Huck, who is a media figure, cannot become a political leader. And Moro is not Mandetta, who is in business, belongs to the DEM, he was already a deputy … Moro speaks highly of Lava Jato, but a public figure has to speak about housing, health, economy … It is very different. . I think it has many limitations.
