David Pratt: Brazil’s battle for its people as coronavirus deaths soar

As I know from personal experience of travelling in the region, relocating the ­remains of people buried years ago is not uncommon in this part of the world.

But that process has taken on a new urgency in Brazil where in March alone 66,570 people died of Covid-19, and daily fatalities in this vast country of 212 ­million people currently account for about a quarter of the global total.

As I write, gravediggers are bagging the decomposed remains of those long dead to make space in cemeteries for the ­spiralling numbers of those succumbing to the virus.

While that itself gives some ­terrifying idea of the crisis facing the country, it doesn’t even begin to illustrate the ­unfolding calamity exacerbated by the ­political turmoil also gripping Brazil.

This in a country where the ­economy has barely grown for almost a decade, held back by the collapse of the commodities boom, constant mismanagement, and a bruising recession five years ago that left the state’s coffers empty.

More recently, given the ruinous track record of right-wing populist President Jair Bolsonaro since coming into office in January 2019, many in Brazil and beyond have persistently warned of the dangers inherent in the country’s political trajectory. But few could have envisaged the prospect of what now might well become a full-blown political meltdown in Latin America’s largest nation.

Last week, in moves that sent political shockwaves across the country, ­Bolsonaro removed six cabinet members. Among them was General Fernando Azevedo e Silva, the minister of defence and a soldier with 45 years’ service.

A day later, on the eve of the 57th ­anniversary of the 1964 coup in Brazil that ushered in two decades of military rule, the current army, navy and air force chiefs, Edson Leal Pujol, Ilques Barbosa, and Antonio Carlos Bermudez, resigned implying they had done so in sympathy with General Azevedo.

As Brazil’s Folha de Sao Paulo ­newspaper observed, never in ­Brazilian history had all three branches of the ­military resigned out of disagreement with a president.

Reports suggest that Bolsonaro – ­himself a former army captain – had also been seeking support from the military chiefs for his campaign against the ­lockdowns imposed by state governors amid the escalating pandemic.

READ MORE: Brazilian families distraught over handling of Covid as death toll tops 250,000

Bolsonaro has consistently criticised lockdowns, saying they will hurt the poor, and has publicly referred to regional governors who impose them as “tyrants”.

Earlier this month at an event in Goias state on March 5, Bolsonaro said that the government regretted deaths from the pandemic, but there had been “enough fussing and whining”.

On March 8, Bolsonaro then brashly declared that “my army” will not “force people to stay home”. Last year he ­appeared personally at a protest, outside the armed forces’ headquarters, against state lockdown measures and in favour of martial law.

While the use of the armed forces to support civilian public health has been commonplace across the world, in Bolsonaro’s Brazil enlisting military support has been for entirely the opposite reasons and to support his opposition to ­lockdowns.

But according to some observers much of the latest moves by ­Bolsonaro suggest mounting political desperation in the presidential palace. For several weeks now, some politicians and prominent businesspeople have demanded that the president cease his denial of Covid-19 and have called for a co-ordinated effort to fight the pandemic.

But in characteristic fashion, Bolsonaro has lashed out in response, with moves that some interpret as a growing sign of panic. These in turn they warn could ­unleash even more sinister measures by the president.

READ MORE: How a perfect storm of Covid, fire and populism threatens the Amazon

“These are defensive actions,” said ­Ricardo Ismael, a political scientist at the Catholic Pontifical University in Rio de Janeiro. “There is a fragility to him,” Ismael told The Washington Post in the wake of the military chiefs’ resignations.

Tough talking-Bolsonaro’s vulnerability appears only to have become more apparent say observers since the revival of his greatest political rival the former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Only recently Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that Lula, had not been treated impartially in graft probes that led to his convictions. The decision appears certain to ensure that Bolsonaro will face Lula in next year’s presidential vote in which they are both expected to run.

How this political rivalry and drama plays out is being watched nervously by Brazil’s business lobby, which backed Bolsonaro in 2018 over his promise of market-friendly policies and economic reforms, many of which have so far gone unfulfilled.

The extent to which Bolsonaro ­perceives Lula as a threat was ­highlighted by reports that the president had also been seeking support from Brazil’s military chiefs to oppose the recent lifting of corruption charges against Lula, who has described the Bolsonaro’s coronavirus strategy as “imbecilic”.

Such criticism of him is not, of course, restricted to Brazil itself. Far beyond the country’s borders its Covid crisis has turned the nation into an international pariah as the president has gained global notoriety for his efforts to fight lockdowns, dismiss mask mandates and advocate unproven remedies such as ­hydroxychloroquine.

READ MORE: This is a crucial moment for building a fairer world

With Brazil historically no stranger to military dictatorship, and Bolsonaro ­having often bemoaned its demise, his ­removal of the military chiefs and ­reshaping of the armed forces to suit him politically, have only further fuelled fears about the president’s authoritarian ­tendencies.

There’s no doubt the president is ­acutely aware of his increasing ­political precariousness. Already Bolsonaro’s ­approval ratings have fallen from a high of 59% early last year to 37%.

The causes of nationwide disgruntlement are many, but stem mainly from the fact that his government has had to shelve emergency payments to tens of millions of citizens during the pandemic, ostensibly because it needs congressional approval for them.

But increasing numbers of Brazilians are growing impatient with Bolsonaro’s rhetoric and false promises even in the face of his increasingly authoritarian measures.

The most recent manifestation of crackdown on any dissent has been ­Bolsonaro’s use of Brazil’s National Security Law, which dates from 1983, near the end of the country’s military dictatorship.

This law states that it is a crime to harm the heads of the three branches of government or expose them to danger but given such a vague definition as to what this actually means, Bolsonaro has cynically used it to detain or investigate critics of his presidency and government.

READ MORE: David Pratt: Bolsonaro's Amazon claims are increasingly hollow

At first it was used against ­prominent critics but increasingly it is being ­employed against ordinary citizens. But both this and the threat from Covid-19 infection have not stopped thousands of Brazilians taking to the streets ­demanding Bolsonaro be impeached over the nation’s health crisis.

At night in cities across the country loud pot-banging protests echo as many vent their anger at his handling of an outbreak that has now killed nearly 300,000 people, a death toll surpassed only by the US.

“They call me a dictator. I want you to point at one thing I did in two years and two months that was autocratic,” ­Bolsonaro brazenly declared recently, while complaining about a newspaper column that used the word “genocidal” to describe him.

DISMISSIVE as the president is of such accusations, many are now seriously concerned as to which direction Bolsonaro might be willing to lead the country.

The next developments in the political crisis will depend on how Bolsonaro fills the newly vacant military posts, and could drastically reshape the entire high command, say analysts.

“Bolsonaro is feeling cornered, and he wants people around him who are 100% loyal,” observed Oliver Stuenkel, associate professor of international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo speaking of the recent cabinet and military reshuffle.

READ MORE: Brazilian Covid variant in Scotland: What is it and will vaccines work?

“The names of the replacements are close to the president, these are all ­people who will stay with the president until the end,” insists Stuenkel, speaking a few days ago to The Financial Times.

Some Brazil watchers like Andre ­Pagliarini, a lecturer in history and Latin American studies at Dartmouth College, say that by “stacking his government with military men, Bolsonaro has made it so that political crises are by definition ­military crises, and vice versa.”

In an op-ed for The Guardian last week, Pagliarini, expressed how he believes ­Bolsonaro is “steeling himself for something”, and that “whether it’s politics as usual or something worse... he has done nothing to reassure an anxious ­populace”.

Nothing of course is making Brazilians more anxious right now than Bolsonaro’s “handling” of the pandemic. According to researchers at Brazilian health institute Fiocruz, just as the nation recorded its highest number of weekly deaths since the pandemic began, it is now facing the biggest health collapse in its history.

Brazil’s mortality rate for Covid-19 is already incredibly high. Eight out of 10 Brazilians intubated because of the virus have died compared with a global average of five out of 10, says Fernando Bozza at Fiocruz, which is based in Rio de Janeiro.

Information from hospital admissions suggests the virus is hitting more younger people, Raphael Guimaraes at Fiocruz, was also cited last week by New Scientist magazine as saying.

“It means that the pandemic in Brazil is reaching the younger population,” said Guimaraes, adding that there has been a surprising increase in the number of 30 to 59-year-olds needing hospitalisation.

Brazil is vaccinating few people

Health experts say the recent explosion of cases is partly driven by a local variant of the virus known as “P1”, inevitably giving rise to the fear that the spread of the country’s more contagious strain will accelerate across the globe, and that as transmission grows, new variants may yet emerge.

Meanwhile, many of Brazil’s intensive care units have reached capacity and ­Bolsonaro’s government has been slow to purchase vaccines with only 6.4 % of ­Brazil’s population having received one dose.

All of which is also taking a devastating toll on Brazil’s already beleaguered economy with unemployment rising to 14 % in recent months, from the 11.6 % Bolsonaro inherited when he took office in 2019.

For the moment, the president despite all this is far from turning in his response to the human and economic carnage wrought by the pandemic. Only last Wednesday as Brazil ­recorded 3780 daily deaths, a record, Bolsonaro ­renewed his attacks on lockdowns and other rigid measures that health experts have said are necessary to arrest the spread of the virus.

Even by the standards of this unpredictable and at times seemingly irrational president, his latest moves have baffled and unnerved many in Brazil and beyond. Calls for moves to impeach him grow, but so too does Bolsonaro’s consolidation of the military and the insertion of his political place men.

“Bolsonaro wanted to make the army into almost a kind of praetorian guard,” said Vinicius de Carvalho, an expert on Brazil’s military at King’s College London.

“But the army didn’t want that. They are already very concerned about the ­damage to their image,” added de ­Carvalho, speaking to the Financial Times last week as Brazil’s armed forces were still reeling from the resignation of its chiefs.

IN a country where the president views its past military dictatorship as something to be proud off rather than condemned just what Bolsonaro does next is anyone’s guess.

Many observers remain convinced he is already setting the stage for his presidential electoral showdown with arch-rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and any potential trouble during and after the ballot next year.

Should Bolsonaro lose that election battle, some Brazil watchers have suggested it might even result in a US Capitol-Hill type scenario, but potentially so much more violent and uncertain in outcome. For the moment though Brazil has enough to contend with.

The battle for the political hearts and health of its citizens goes on.