Brazil under threat

President Bolsonaro

By Angela Perez
Journalist, Brazil

SÃO PAULO: Almost 36 years after the re-democratization in Brazil, which lived through 21 years of military rule, the country today breathes an air of authoritarian populism.

Mirroring itself in right-wing regimes in various parts of the world and in the administration of former American President Donald Trump, President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, acts senselessly, endangering the health of his population and the country’s economy, that like many nations has been seriously affected by the new coronavirus pandemic.

Initially, Bolsonaro minimized the covid-19 crisis, assuring the population that it was just a flu. Then, pressured by the alarming numbers of deaths and contagions, he adopted Trump’s speech that hydroxychloroquine was a life-saving medicine for patients with coronavirus.

Despite tests indicating that the drug was not proven effective against the disease, and could even cause side effects, the Brazilian president continued to spread the use of the drug and even clashed with his Minister of Health, who ended up being fired.

He rejected the use of the protective mask and also condemned the restrictions measures, claiming, irresponsibly, that they only harm the country’s economy and end up causing many more deaths than the pandemic. He contracted the coronavirus, said that he cured himself using only hydroxychloroquine and insisted that covid-19 was just a “little cold”.

While countries around the world followed the advance of vaccines that were being created by various laboratories and tried to guarantee doses for their populations as soon as the immunizers passed the tests, Bolsonaro criticized the “rush for vaccines”.

He clashed with the government of the State of São Paulo, which, due to the inertia of the federal government, had ordered vaccines from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac, the coronavac, on its own initiative.

Vaccination in Brazil is in a slow pace and the country faces, in addition to an increasing number of cases of contagion, a new strain of coronavirus that spreads more quickly and that has already been detected in other countries. As a result, Brazil entered the list of vetoed countries and its travelers are prohibited from entering various parts of the world.

Coronavirus death burial

According to data from February 23, Brazil occupied the third place in the number of deaths by covid-19, with 247 thousand deaths, and the second with the highest number of cases of contagion by the new coronavirus (with more than 10 million), second only to the United States.

The vaccine is now essential for a steady economic recovery in most parts of the world, as leaders of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other multilateral institutions have stated.

But, with a slow vaccination, economists predict a low economic performance in Brazil with a drop in Gross Domestic Product in the first and second quarters and even a risk of recession.

The pandemic of the new coronavirus should leave a hard balance for the Brazilian economy: it could stop being among the ten largest in the world this year, being overtaken by Canada, South Korea and Russia.

According to the IMF’s October projections for this year, with the covid-19 crisis and its impacts on the world economy, Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product would rise from US $ 1.8 trillion last year to US $ 1.4 trillion by the end of this year – which would lead the Brazilian economy to be overtaken by Canadians, South Koreans and Russians.

Economists recall that in 2011, the country was the seventh largest economy in the world, a position it held until 2014. When the recession of 2015 and 2016 came, Brazil lost two positions in this ranking, moving to eighth place in 2017 and to the ninth, in the last two years.

Nothing suggests a significant improvement in the job market in the first semester (in the period September-November there were 14 million unemployed, or 14.1% of the workforce).

Without the emergency aid, which the government hesitates to approve, more than 17 million people fall back into poverty, increasing the number of individuals with a daily income below US $ 5.50 to about 62 million.

Brazilian corona death graves

President Bolsonaro is known for his nationalist positions and for defending the military dictatorship in Brazil and torture as a legitimate practice. He is also recognized for his anti-scientific stance and climatic denialism. He opposes the legalization of same-sex marriage, and has already caused controversy for his homophobic and sexist statements and some considered racist.

He lives in constant friction with the media, whom he accuses of spreading fake news against him. In summary, he wants to have a media in Brazil totally favorable to him, ending the free press.

Today, Brazil is sick, poorer and disturbed by the split created between those who are against the current government and Bolsonaro’s supporters, who follow him blindly, ignoring the fake news campaign articulated at the top of Brasília.