Opinion: Pandemic Could Ruin Bolsonaro’s Presidency

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) Faced with the challenges brought on by the pandemic, the President ought to log off from his social media for a while to focus on a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It’s called ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’. It begins with an insight:

“Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain, 6,000 metres high, and it’s said to be the tallest mountain in Africa,” Hemingway noted. “Its western peak is called ‘Ngàge Ngài’, the House of God. Next to this peak is the carcass of a leopard. No one has yet been able to explain what the leopard was looking for at such altitude.”

The leopard in the short story serves as a metaphor for many things. It may symbolize the romantic search for the unreachable, or it may represent the adventurous spirit carried to the boundaries of affection, of insanity.

The Planalto is the summit of Brazilian politics. Its tenants arrive thinking they have super powers. In Bolsonaro’s case, the coronavirus helped dispel an illusion that tends to befall all presidents: the illusion that they preside.

At a time when the pandemic is disrupting the situation, infecting and killing on a massive scale, it would be up to the president to ask himself: Why on earth have I climbed the apex of politics? What, after all, is my mission?

The piece of the map that Bolsonaro loves the most is the stretch where the United States is settled. For if he were to observe the history of his favorite country, Bolsonaro would note that the best way for American presidents to unite the nation in their support is to declare war on some foreign enemy.

The attack on another country typically excites Americans by dissolving internal divisions. Had he led the war against the virus, Bolsonaro would today be a great politician, rather than a low-ranking backbench member of Congress who circumstances led to the Planalto. With an advantage: he would not need to bomb Argentina. Or Venezuela.

However, the President preferred not to preside. Bolsonaro adopted the ostrich tactic when faced with the virus. In order not to acknowledge reality, he stuck his head in his presumed superiority.

Based on a crude strategy – the transfer of responsibilities to mayors and governors – Bolsonaro reached a mistaken conclusion. He thought he would be shielded from the collective wake atmosphere and the consequences of economic ruin.

Whenever he is asked about his inertia, the President states that the Supreme Court has banned him from acting, thus shifting the management of the crisis to governors and mayors.

That’s idle talk.

The Supreme Court only recognized, in a unanimous decision, that states and municipalities have the power to take action such as social isolation and the closing of trade during the pandemic – measures that Bolsonaro threatened to overturn by decree.

During the case hearing, the Supreme Court justices made it clear that the decision did not absolve Bolsonaro from his responsibilities. It is inconceivable that the President failed to set up a crisis committee with representatives of governors and mayors.

It is unbelievable that the Ministry of Health has not yet published a plan for maintaining and ending social isolation, something that would address regional differences and set the guidelines to be followed at each stage of the pandemic.

Bolsonaro’s denialism has evolved from omission to sabotage. The refinement, the care, the extreme thoroughness with which the government achieved irresponsibility, is remarkable. It blends disintegration of the Ministry of Health with an instigation to invade state and municipal hospitals by Bolsonarists, hoisted by the “legend” to the ranks of inspectors.

Bolsonaro should not worry about the evaluation of governors and mayors. They will be ruthlessly judged for their mistakes and successes in managing the health crisis. The President would help himself if were to take care of his own performance, which will also be scrutinized by Brazilians.

Ironically, Bolsonaro’s Brazil will soon be competing with Trump’s America for first place on the world podium for deaths and infections. In such a scenario, the President’s inability to provide answers to the challenges that plague him may yet turn into a suicidal impulse.

In the future, when archaeologists dig up this piece of national history, they will find under the rubble of a remote presidency a carcass that will be as unexplainable as Hemingway’s leopard. No scholar will be able to tell what an inept Captain was looking for at the top of the Planalto.

Josias de Souza (UOL)