Opinion: Brazil Could Pay Incalculable Price for Having an Inept President in Pandemic

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) A pandemic like the one we are experiencing is so unique and severe that it could prove to be the most striking historical event of our lives. It will mark the beginning of a new era. As a result, leaders’ decisions now and in the years to come, in a fluid world, will have long-term systemic consequences for their countries and for the global order.

As Janan Ganesh, a columnist for the British newspaper Financial Times recently said, it is likely that the next president of the United States will have, along with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the opportunity to define the foundations of the post-Pandemic era. He uses as his historical example American President Harry S Truman, who came to power after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt at the end of World War II.

In normal circumstances, Truman would have hardly been a significant leader. The time in which he became president, however, was atypical. Truman implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the Western European economy, and founded NATO, becoming the most influential American leader of the second half of the 20th century.

For decades, Truman’s successors operated within the geopolitical system he had designed. In a fluid world, leaders from around the globe became highly important to their nations at that time, from Konrad Adenauer in Germany and Mao Zedong in China, to Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru and Israeli leader David Ben-Gurion. As Ganesh notes, “circumstances mattered more than the individual.”

As in 1945, there is growing evidence that the current pandemic will be a time of transformation, raising world leaders once again to the position of rulers whose decisions will impact their countries for decades to come.

The confusing US response to the novel coronavirus suggests that Washington’s era of global leadership is over, initiating a complex transitional process to a two-power system. The pandemic should also symbolize the end of hyperglobalization, presumably with a greater government role in the economy and lower growth rates in developing countries.

James Crabtree, professor at the National University of Singapore, recently wrote that the whole concept of Emerging Markets must cease to exist, with profound consequences for the global distribution of power and the future of capitalism. The global health crisis will cause the first setback in global human development in three decades, triggering sharp hikes in poverty rates and political instability in countless countries around the world, fuelling xenophobia, nationalism and spurring the multilateralism crisis.

Until a vaccine is available, countries will have to step up the relaxation of quarantine with new periods of isolation, always coupled with thousands of tests.

Amid all this, a different order will be born, shaped by the strategies embraced by world leaders. Since choices during the current pandemic will have to define the context in which future governments will operate, countries that today have intelligent and visionary leaders are likely to be disproportionately rewarded – simply because, due to the historical moment, their leaders will have greater impact.

Countries with efficient governments will emerge from the crisis more unified and resilient, with more positive societies, more confident of their ability to overcome complex challenges. In these countries, scientists and health professionals will gain greater visibility and respect, as there is a constructive public debate on how to find the right balance between increasing state surveillance capacity and protecting privacy, how to reopen the economy without endangering lives, and how to finance economic stimulus packages.

Countries that currently have poor leaders, on the other hand, may ultimately be punished more than under normal circumstances. In addition to mismanaging the pandemic and extending the health and economic crisis, they fail to consider scientific evidence and act with no transparency. They will fail to lay the necessary foundations to initiate the painful long-term adaptation.

Rather than unifying their countries, they will leave their societies more fragmented and suspicious, precluding public debate on countless challenges, such as the future of education, the economy, employment, transportation, and even the electoral process in times of pandemic. As always in history, countries with intelligent leaders will take advantage of the fluid world to leapfrog positions, while drifting nations will lose relevance.

It will take a long time to assess the pandemic’s geopolitical consequences and the inevitable rearrangement in the distribution of power between nations. However, so far everything suggests that Brazil will be one of the great geopolitical losers of this historic moment. In April, when Brazil was not even invited to join the launch of the worldwide initiative “Global Collaboration to Accelerate the Development, Production and Equitable Access to New COVID-19 Diagnostics, Therapeutics and Vaccines”, which includes governments, international organizations, foundations and private companies, the country was deemed internationally irrelevant. This could be the new post-pandemic normal – and will take years to be reversed.

The sad truth is that, at this time, Brazil brings very little to the debate table on the greatest challenges facing humanity. It is relevant only in the sense that it is a cause for concern inside and outside the country. In addition to the many deaths that could be prevented with a more coherent and scientifically based approach, Brazil may pay a much higher price, for a much longer time, than most people believe