RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Over the past few days, Chamber President Rodrigo Maia has coordinated a number of private meetings to discuss the direction of the government and the actions of President Jair Bolsonaro in the face of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
There have been rounds of talks with party leaders, court justices and the Senate leadership to discuss the position of the Planalto Palace and the lack of political coordination and party support from Bolsonarists in Congress.
According to sources, despite Maia’s prominence, it was up to Senate President Davi Alcolumbre to voice the harshest assessment of the Bolsonaro government. In one of these meetings, at the official residence of the head of the Chamber of Deputies, Alcolumbre said that “the government is finished”. “The difference is whether it will reach 2022,” he said, according to officials present at the meeting.
For now, there are no concrete steps towards a motion for impeachment against the president, whose popularity is still in the 30 percent range, although 51 percent of Brazilians, according to a recent Datafolha survey, believe that Bolsonaro is more disruptive than he is helpful in fighting Covid-19.
Nonetheless, the Congress and influential legislators’ assessment is that the government will have to pick through the rubble in the next few years, with no tangible prospect of structural reforms or public safety projects, two of Jair Bolsonaro’s main banners. For a future government, legislators have begun to discuss the notion of a semi-presidential system, albeit reservedly and without attribution.
These same politicians consider that Sérgio Moro, Minister of Justice and Public Safety, and Paulo Guedes, Minister of Economy, are aware that most of their projects – reforms, strengthening of borders or fighting organized crime – were virtually buried, since any post-crisis resource will need to be used to rebuild the most basic economy.
At one of these meetings, David Alcolumbre heard that it should be up to the Senate – and not ultimately the Supreme Court (STF) – to overrule an eventual decree by Bolsonaro that would end isolation and social detachment. There was no time. STF Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week banned the President from overturning decrees by governors and mayors determining social isolation.
Through his advisors, David Alcolumbre denied that he had considered that the Bolsonaro government had come to an end. The statement, however, has been confirmed by other members of the meeting. “The president of the Senate states that he is focused on ensuring that measures are taken to mitigate the losses resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic and is concerned about the threat to the lives of thousands of Brazilians,” said the Senate Presidential advisor in a statement.
Source: Veja