Covaxin case: Brazil prosecutors have 90 days to investigate Bolsonaro over vaccine negotiations

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s prosecutor general’s office has 90 days to investigate possible irregularities that President Jair Bolsonaro may have committed in negotiations over vaccines against Covid-19, the Supreme Court (STF) advised Saturday, July 3.

The deadline was set by Justice Rosa Weber, who authorized the investigation that would determine whether the president committed dereliction of duty and other crimes during negotiations to purchase the Covaxin vaccine, which is manufactured by Indian pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech.

The suspicions were raised by a Senate investigating committee (CPI) trying to determine whether the government is responsible for worsening a pandemic that has already killed more than 520,000 Brazilians.

In the case of the Indian vaccine, the Covid CPI says it has evidence that Bolsonaro ignored information given to him personally by a pro-government congressman about irregularities in the purchase contract, which was only suspended when suspicions were uncovered by the commission and the local press.

That agreement, which called for 20 million doses of Covaxin, was worth $420 million. Among other suspicious items, there was a side agreement that part of the payment would go to a Singapore-based company that did not appear in the contract.

In addition, a Brazilian businessman already under investigation for corruption, who in 2016 “sold” the health ministry a batch of drugs he never delivered, acted as an “intermediary.”

If prosecutors find solid evidence against Bolsonaro, they must file a case at the Supreme Court, which, if it accepts it, can only initiate a trial with the approval of a two-thirds majority of the 513 deputies.

In that case, the president would be suspended from his functions during the 180 days required by the Supreme Court to complete the process and removed from office if found guilty.

However, if the Chamber of Deputies does not approve the trial, the case would go nowhere, and Bolsonaro would remain in power.

Suspicions of the government’s responsibility in the advance of a pandemic, the seriousness of which Bolsonaro still denies, have emboldened the Brazilian opposition, which this week again called on Congress to initiate proceedings aimed at impeaching the president and called for protests across the country this Saturday in support of that demand.