Fernando Alcoforado*
The current damage of the Bolsonaro government to Brazil is mainly due to its inaction in overcoming the country’s economic problems, its deliberate action to eliminate the existing social benefits for the Brazilian population, the lack of measures necessary to overcome social problems and by the compromise of national sovereignty. The future damage that can be done by the Bolsonaro government concerns the end of democracy in Brazil with the establishment of a dictatorship.
Brazil’s economic problems are basically the result of the stagnation of the economy that results from the fact of to have a government unable to generate economic growth, besides contributing to the country’s capital flight in 2019, which is the largest in history with the October foreign exchange flow being negative by US$ 8.49 billion and raising the year’s exchange deficit to US$ 21.46 billion. The deliberate action in eliminating social benefits occurred with the Social Security reform that attacked the majority of the working population by completing the evil carried out by the Michel Temer government that did with the labor reform.
Another major negative mark of the Bolsonaro government concerns the lack of measures needed to overcome social problems such as the issue of mass unemployment affecting a population of 41 million unemployed and underemployed people and the issue of social inequalities with excessive income concentration which is currently registered in the country where almost 30% of Brazil’s income is in the hands of only 1% of the country’s inhabitants, constituting the largest concentration of its kind in the world, as indicated by the World Inequality Survey 2018 coordinated among others by the French economist Thomas Piketty.
The Bolsonaro government compromises national sovereignty by Brazil’s subaltern alignment with US interests and international capital when it decided to hand over the Alcântara Base to the United States, Embraer denationalization with its sale to Boeing, auctions with the sale of the burdensome assignment of Petrobras concerning Presal benefiting foreign capital and the privatization of Petrobras’ oil and gas refining, distribution and transportation sectors, demonstrating the antinational character of its government that is in the service of the god Market, of Wall Street, the Washington Consensus and against the Brazilian people.
These are the current damages done against Brazil by the Bolsonaro government. The future damage is related to the end of democracy in Brazil with the establishment of a dictatorship. Signs as to the intention of the Bolsonaro government to pursue this purpose are manifested in the recent words of Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro and Minister Paulo Guedes to implement AI-5. With AI5 reinvigorated by the Bolsonaro government, the President of the Republic can close the National Congress and State Legislative Assemblies and intervene in states and municipalities under the guise of “national security” and the President of the Republic and the Governors of the States could legislate by through decree laws and even through constitutional amendments.
In addition, Bolsonaro could intervene in states and municipalities under the guise of “national security”; adopt prior censorship of music, film, theater and television and censorship of the press and other media; make illegal political meetings unauthorized by the police; if necessary, adopt curfews throughout the country; suspend habeas corpus for politically motivated crimes; summarily dismiss any civil servant; to annul the mandates of opposition parliamentarians and to suspend the political rights of citizens considered subversive, depriving them for up to ten years of voting or election capacity.
The intentions of the Bolsonaro government to implement an exception regime in the country are very clear, not only by the demonstrations of Eduardo Bolsonaro and Paulo Guedes, but also by the bill sent to the National Congress that provides for the exclusion of illicitness that would apply when government to engage the Armed Forces to crack down on social movements, which means, in other words, the right to kill by repressive forces. Bolsonaro has already admitted that he would call the Armed Forces to crack down on social movements. He is eagerly waiting for the Brazilian people to take to the streets to protest his evil government to set up an exception regime in Brazil.
The Bolsonaro government’s goal would therefore be to gain full power to put its fascist government project into practice. The escalation of fascism is already a concrete fact in Brazil, widespread, rooted and could become irreversible in Brazil at the present time if there is no resistance. To avoid the end of the current democratic system in Brazil, it is not enough, therefore, to rely on republican institutions that can undergo changes contrary to the interests of the vast majority of the population through bills and amendments to the Constitution by the Bolsonaro government. The only way to prevent the escalation of fascism and the establishment of a far-right dictatorship in Brazil is to form an anti-fascist democratic front in Parliament and Civil Society to defend the 1988 Constitution and fight against acts of government that are contrary to the interests of the vast majority of the population and Brazil.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).
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