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Prominent leaders of the Brazilian opposition have called for President Jair Bolsonaro to be immediately removed from office to prevent his “coup-plotters and authoritarian delusions” from becoming a reality.
“We cannot be bystanders of this barbarism,” Congressman Marcelo Freixo said Wednesday as parliamentarians demanded Bolsonaro’s impeachment for what they called his illegal attempt to co-opt the armed forces.
Bolsonaro’s decision to fire Brazil’s defense minister, General Fernando Azevedo e Silva, and the subsequent departure of the heads of the three branches of the army, has caused political upheaval in the world’s fourth-largest democracy..
“Here is an attempt by the president to organize a coup, it is already underway, and that is why we are reacting,” said Alessandro Molon, leader of the opposition in the lower house, when the request for impeachment was presented. congress.
General Azevedo e Silva was relieved of his duties on Monday, and members of the military establishment promoted the idea that he was fired for resisting Bolsonaro’s plans for a “coup adventure.” Hours later, on Tuesday morning, the chiefs of the army, air force and navy were fired during a grumpy meeting after Bolsonaro discovered they were about to resign in protest.
The sudden and dramatic rift between Brazil’s far-right president and the military that helped bring him to power in 2018 has yet to be fully explained. Some observers suspect that senior members of the military had decided to ditch the Bolsonaro administration, in part out of frustration over his dire handling of an uncontrolled coronavirus outbreak that has killed nearly 320,000 Brazilians.
Others believe that the military chiefs may have been genuinely trying to protect Brazilian democracy after Bolsonaro, a former army captain known for his admiration for dictators, attempted some kind of authoritarian move, such as an auto coup, whereby a leader democratically elected assumes dictatorial powers. .
João Roberto Martins Filho, a leading military expert, said at least eight different explanations for the break were circulating, and it was unclear what the truth was.
“We don’t even know yet what Bolsonaro proposed. He is crazy enough to propose this kind of thing, but we don’t know and it will be difficult to find out, ”said Martins Filho, adding that he was not convinced of the efforts of the ousted military commanders to position themselves as defenders of democracy.
“They elected Bolsonaro, they supported Bolsonaro, they filled the entire Bolsonaro government, and now they want to get out of this as Democrats,” he said. “If they were really in favor of the constitution, they would go back to their barracks and take care of national security, as they do in European countries.”
Fast guide
The dictatorship of Brazil 1964-1985
How it started?
Brazil’s leftist president, João Goulart, was overthrown in a coup in April 1964. General Humberto Castelo Branco became leader, political parties were banned, and the country plunged into 21 years of military rule.
The repression intensified under Castelo Branco’s hardline successor, Artur da Costa e Silva, who assumed power in 1967. He was responsible for a notorious decree called AI-5 that gave him broad dictatorial powers and initiated the so-called “ years of chumbo ”. ”(Years of lead), a bleak period of tyranny and violence that would last until 1974.
What happened during the dictatorship?
Supporters of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military regime, including Jair Bolsonaro, attribute it to bringing security and stability to the South American country and planning a decade-long economic “miracle.”
He also went ahead with several pharaonic infrastructure projects, including the still-unfinished Transamazonica highway and the eight-mile bridge across Rio’s Guanabara Bay.
But the regime, while less notoriously violent than those in Argentina and Chile, was also responsible for murdering or killing hundreds of its opponents and imprisoning thousands more. Among those imprisoned and tortured was Brazil’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff, then a leftist rebel.
It was also a period of severe censorship. Some of Brazil’s most beloved musicians, including Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, and Caetano Veloso, went into exile in Europe and wrote songs about their forced departures.
How I finish?
Political exiles began returning to Brazil in 1979 after an amnesty law was passed that began to pave the way for a return to democracy.
But the pro-democracy movement “Diretas Já” (Direct elections now!) Only reached its rhythm in 1984 with a series of large and historic street demonstrations in cities like Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Belo Horizonte.
Civil government returned the following year and a new constitution was introduced in 1988. The following year, Brazil held its first direct presidential elections in nearly three decades.
Whatever happens, few doubt that the week’s drama represents a pivotal and potentially dangerous moment in the modern history of a country that only emerged from two decades of dictatorship in 1985.
“This is an important moment for Brazilian democracy,” said Brian Winter, a Brazil specialist and editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly.
Winter said he suspected Bolsonaro had been trying to fill senior military officials with more responsive figures who could help protect him from impeachment or come to his rescue if he failed in his bid to win reelection next year.
Bolsonaro’s fears about his ability to secure a second term appear to have intensified in recent months, and polls show that his handling of Covid has reduced support and the unexpected resurgence of his political nemesis Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Lula, a charismatic former union leader who led Brazil from 2003 to 2011, was prevented from challenging Bolsonaro in the 2018 elections due to a recently overturned corruption conviction. But now it seems likely that the 75-year-old will face Bolsonaro in 2022 and has spent the last few weeks criticizing his rival’s “stupid” handling of the coronavirus.
“Bolsonaro is concerned about the impeachment and he is also concerned about Lula,” Winter said. “I don’t think they will ever see Jair Bolsonaro hand over the presidential sash to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva”
Arlindo Chinaglia, an opposition politician who also supports the impeachment request, one of more than 60 filed against Bolsonaro, admitted that the removal of the president would only be possible if society mobilized against his “authoritarian faults.” In the wake of this week’s political crisis, he urged citizens who appreciated democracy, including those who voted for Bolsonaro in power, to realize the threat.
“We have a president who is trying to pressure the armed forces to serve his authoritarian and coup-mongering deceptions,” Chinaglia said, recalling the military coup that plunged Brazil into dictatorship exactly 57 years ago, on April 1, 1964.
“Showing excessive tolerance towards those who attack democracy day after day has never been the right way to behave,” he added.
