RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro warned Wednesday that the country “is a powder keg” because of the restrictive measures adopted by governors and mayors to try to curb the out-of-control Covid-19 pandemic.
“Brazil is on edge. I am waiting for the people to give a signal,” said the president, who said that because of the policy of “closing everything” very soon, the country would have severe social problems.
Bolsonaro made these statements in a brief meeting with a group of supporters, a day after the Senate, by decision of the Supreme Court, agreed to install a commission to investigate the “omissions” that the government may have incurred in the fight against the pandemic, which is going through its worst phase in the country.
According to official data, in little more than a year, Brazil has accumulated almost 360,000 deaths and 13.6 million contagions, with the pandemic curve on the rise and hospitals on the verge of collapse.
The situation led many governors and mayors to heavily restrict productive activities, measures that the president opposes and criticized again on Wednesday.
Bolsonaro showed a report according to which about 125 million Brazilians (almost half of the population) have food problems and attributed it to the confinements.
“There are people in suits and ties who do not want to see that and believe that life is to be at home, with teleworking, and the people to exploit,” said the president, who noted: “I am not threatening anyone, but I believe that soon we will have serious problems.”
Bolsonaro also asked “to respect the virus, which kills,” but he also said that “it seems that now heart problems and many other diseases are over in Brazil. Now everything is Covid.”
He also assured that he does not intend to and cannot “interfere” in the work of the parliamentary commission that will investigate the management of the pandemic but insisted that governors and mayors should also be subject to inquiries.
He cited multi-million financial resources sent by the federal government to states and municipalities. He assured that in “some places,” many governors and mayors “made a party out of it,” to add that he considers “arbitrary” certain “acts” of the Supreme Court and of the Parliament itself.
“The temperature is rising” and “there are going to be consequences of those arbitrary acts,” declared Bolsonaro, who pointed out that “that he does not intend to offend another power or some authority. It is reality.”