Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to present an evaluation of the most disastrous government in the history of Brazil, that of the Bolsonaro government. The evaluation of the Bolsonaro government in its 2-year presidential term was disastrous from any angle of analysis. It was the most disastrous in the history of Brazil in terms of foreign policy, the economy, job creation, the environment, science and technology, education and culture and, above all, social rights and public health. This Bolsonaro government evaluation shows that it is more than a political problem, it has become a public health problem and to the resumption of national development.
The disastrous foreign policy of Brazil assumed by the Bolsonaro government meant a break with all the tradition carried out throughout the post-military dictatorship, such as respect for the sovereignty of peoples, non-interference in the internal affairs of another country, defense of world peace, continental integration, non-alignment, among other principles, all of which were directly or indirectly included in the 1988 Constitution. The unfolding of this position assumed by the Bolsonaro government was its unconditional, automatic and subordinate alignment with the Donald Trump administration of the United States. This subordinate alignment with the United States contributed towards Brazil trying to intervene in Venezuela while disrespecting the sovereignty of this country and ingesting in its internal affairs. It did not act in defense of world peace by aligning itself with Israel in the confrontation with Palestine and the Arab countries and with the United States in the confrontation with Iran, it did not collaborate with regional integration by creating diplomatic friction with Argentina and it abandoned independent foreign policy, aligning itself subordinately with the United States. Another setback in foreign policy was the intention to move the Brazilian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in support of the Israeli policy of colonizing Palestine, the position contrary to UN decisions on the illegal occupation of Arab territories and Palestine, as well as support for American sanctions against Iran. In international meetings that discuss topics such as labor rights (ILO), human rights (UN Council) and the environment (COP), Brazilian positions have been added to those of countries with a democracy deficit and reactionaries regarding possible advances in these themes.
The disastrous economic policy of the Bolsonaro government was designed to adopt the principles of more radical neoliberalism. The Ministry of Economy, led by Paulo Guedes, was structured to dismantle the Brazilian state, built since 1930 by Getúlio Vargas and other government officials, giving priority to privatization of state-owned companies. The Partnership and Investment Program – the name given to the privatization plan of the Bolsonaro government – includes a list of companies of different economic activities, some of strategic nature, leading in the technology area and others that operate in areas sensitive to democracy and inclusion that Jair Bolsonaro wants to privatize and that can bring serious economic losses and to the country’s sovereignty. A broad privatization plan was initiated with the sale of Petrobras assets (TAG and BR distribuidora), pre-salt field auctions and airport concessions. Petrobras is being dismantled when it undoes important operations for the integrated operation of the company, but which, in its privatist eagerness, the government decided to hand over to private companies. The Bolsonaro government compromises national sovereignty through Brazil’s subordinate alignment with North American interests and international capital when it decided to hand over the Alcântara Base to the United States, the denationalization of Embraer with its sale to Boeing, sale auctions of Petrobras’ onerous assignment in the pre-salt layer that benefits foreign capital and the privatization of the oil and gas refining, distribution and transportation sectors of Petrobras demonstrating the surrender character of its government that is at the service of the god Mercado, of Wall Street, of the Consensus Washington and against the Brazilian people.
The intention to sell Eletrobras, Correios, Casa da Moeda, Dataprev, Serpro was also announced. Eletrobras is the largest company in the electric sector in Latin America and is a leader in electric power generation and transmission in Brazil. Eletrobras’ generating capacity is equivalent to about a third of the country’s total installed capacity, whose profit in 2018 was R$ 13.3 billion. Access to electricity is a fundamental right of the Brazilian population, an essential service of collective interest and which cannot have its generation and transmission delivered to the private sector. Political resistance and legal obstacles for the government to sell Eletrobras also prevented the government from executing its plan. Public banks are on the agenda of the Bolsonaro government. Among the measures announced and some already implemented are the sale of assets from Caixa Econômica Federal, Banco do Brasil and other public financial institutions. It should be noted that the privatization of public banks does not fit the discourse of reducing expenses and not even inefficiency, since these financial institutions are profitable, efficient and fulfill a central function for the execution of public policies. In turn, the privatization of the water and sewage system, approved by Congress at the end of 2019, is an unprecedented setback in the area of water resource control worldwide, with water being treated as a commodity and not as a basic right of all the Brazilian people.
The policy of job creation has never been the concern of the Bolsonaro government. Since his inauguration in the presidency of the Republic, the Bolsonaro government has worked to dismantle the Brazilian State, doing nothing to reactivate the economy of this resulting in the highest level of unemployment with more than 14 million unemployed and 27 million underutilized workers ever recorded in the history of Brazil . In 2020, the pandemic of the new Coronavirus further aggravated the terrible situation of the Brazilian economy, which has already stagnated since 2014. The challenge of reactivating the Brazilian economy increased with the pandemic and the Bolsonaro government remained inert in the sense of reactivating it whose solution would consist of making massive investments in economic infrastructure (energy, transport and communications) and social infrastructure (education, health, housing and basic sanitation) that demand resources of the order of R$ 2 trillion. Thus, the federal government should act as an inducer of the resumption of economic growth in Brazil with the realization of these investments, which would also contribute to attract private investments. This government action would contribute to raise the levels of employment and income of families and companies, in consequence, to combat the current mass unemployment, which reached the highest levels in history, and to promote the expansion of consumption by families and companies resulting, respectively, from the increase in the wage bill of families and the income of companies. To finance the actions of the federal government, it could use the country’s international reserves in the amount of US$ 320 billion to not further increase public debt. The incompetence of Bolsonaro and the presence of Paulo Guedes, a fundamentalist of neoliberalism, in the Ministry of Economy, hinder this action.
The Bolsonaro government’s disastrous environmental policy gained prominence in the international community due to the growth of fires and deforestation in the Legal Amazon and disobedience to the Paris Agreement to combat global climate change. The Bolsonaro government has taken a series of measures that collaborate to increase deforestation. Bolsonaro’s speech works as a seal of deforestation. There has never been, in any Brazilian democratic government, the incentive to deforestation with the argument that those who would be protecting the Amazon would be foreign interests. Another consequence is the complete dismantling of the inspection bodies. This is a major catastrophe produced by the Bolsonaro government whose action could lead to the destruction of the Amazon Forest with the manifest intention of paving the way for mining, agriculture, livestock and timber activities. The fires carried out to prepare the area for agricultural activities are responsible for the significant emission of gases that cause the greenhouse effect, such as carbon dioxide (CO2). In addition, the destruction of the Amazon Forest would contribute to producing a major humanitarian catastrophe by jeopardizing the existence of the indigenous populations living there. The Bolsonaro government is committing an environmental and humanitarian crime of great proportions in the Amazon that needs to be vigorously combated. Bolsonaro expressed skepticism about the international meetings dedicated to the Paris Agreement climate change debate. Bolsonaro admitted to leave the Paris Agreement stating that “if it were good, the United States would not have left”. Bolsonaro has become an international outcast, an environmental villain in the eyes of the world.
The Bolsonaro government’s disastrous science and technology policy promoted the destruction of the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation (SNCTI), built over the last 60 years in Brazil. In these 60 years of investments in CT&I, Brazil has developed the production of energy from renewable sources, high-tech medicine, the launch of startups, the development of a diversified industrial base, among other actions. Transnational Brazilian companies, such as Embraer was denationalized, Embraco and WEG were leveraged through partnerships and cross-investments with universities to train personnel and generate innovative research. The Bolsonaro government excluded thousands of scholarships from the CNPq and Capes system, and CNPq scholarship holders struggled to receive funding for their research. The Bolsonaro government plans to put into practice its proposal to transfer Finep to BNDES, as well as the merger of CNPq and Capes. 80% of the resources of the FNDCT (National Fund for the Development of Science and Technology) were sterilized when inserted in the contingency reserve. The situation is deplorable because industry, science and national technology have been scrapped, contributing to increase scientific, technological and industrial dependence on the outside world. The current retraction of the Brazilian industry reveals the sector’s inability to react and the prospect of a reversal of the situation is very difficult in the current conjuncture of economic recession aggravated by the crisis of the new Coronavirus. This retraction of the Brazilian industry comes since the 1980s, when the participation of the manufacturing industry in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 33% and, in 2019, it did not exceed 11.3%. It is the lowest level in 80 years. Stagnant, the industry has the smallest share of GDP since the late 1940s.
The disastrous education and culture policy of the Bolsonaro government is characterized by an ultraconservative holy war of a neofascist character against progressive and democratic ideals. Under the discourse of defending the family, the country and against “cultural Marxism”, the Bolsonaro government attacked the educational and cultural structure on several fronts, with cuts and contingencies in budgets, proposals for changes in the functioning and direction of the Ministry of Education and the extinction of the Ministry of Culture. Universities and federal education institutes were the target of coercive measures such as the appointment of deans not respecting the order of the triple list to ensure the possession of leaders who are ideologically and politically aligned with the government, the use of ideological criteria for the selection of fellows and directing resources to federal educational institutions, persecution of teachers with the opening of investigations and encouragement of denunciation through lines created by the government for this purpose. In addition to manifestations of a neo-fascist character, the area of Culture was also the victim of inoperative, incompetent, anti-intellectual management and, above all, that preaches hatred for democracy. In addition to the extinction of the Ministry of Culture, which, transformed into the Secretary of Culture, was adrift, being played from one ministry to another. Meanwhile, nothing was happening in the Secretary of Culture. Funarte, the National Library, the Palmares Foundation, Ancine, among others, were delivered to people markedly identified with the extreme right speech.
The disastrous social rights policy of the Bolsonaro government was characterized by showing contempt for the fundamental rights provided for in the 1988 Constitution, its detachment from democracy and the lack of respect with which it addresses broad social sectors. Brazil, from January 2019, witnesses the institutionalization of violations of civil liberties and fundamental rights. Government initiatives (bills, provisional measures, decrees), added to the declarations and attitudes that come from Bolsonaro and his ministers, create a serious environment that encourages violence and authoritarianism. Attacks on teachers, universities, science and technology, the media and journalists, the right to manifest and organize society and social participation in discussions, decisions and monitoring of public policies, as well as the points of the Anti-Crime Package all have the same meaning: restrict democracy and carry out a coup to consolidate a dictatorial state. The extinction of Participative Government Councils that formulated public policies in various federal ministries and administrative bodies shows the disregard for society’s participation in the Bolsonaro government. Attacks on legal institutions and threats to reissue authoritarian acts by the military dictatorship were also recurrent in the Bolsonaro government. The attempt to dismantle workers’ freedom of organization was intensified with the promulgation of MP 873, which arbitrarily prohibited the payment of associative monthly payments by payroll, changing provisions of the CLT and Law No. 8,112 / 90. The pension reform, sent in April by the Bolsonaro government to Congress and approved, reduced the values of pensions and pensions of workers in the private sector and of the servers of the Union. The transition rules were tougher because there was an increase in the contribution ranges of workers and the minimum retirement age was high for both women (62 years) and men (65 years).
The disastrous public health policy of the Bolsonaro government is manifested in the fact that Brazil failed to combat the spread of the new Coronavirus by rendering the Ministry of Health inoperative and handing over the management of Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) to people markedly identified with the extreme right speech, in addition to taking action against all measures put in place by governors and mayors to combat the spread of the virus. Currently, Brazil has 194 thousand deaths by Covid 19. The lack of national coordination by the Bolsonaro government in combating the spread of the new Coronavirus is the main responsible for this high number of deaths. If the federal government had adopted the “lockdown”, that is, strict and total isolation at the beginning of the pandemic in Brazil with at least 75% of the entire population in quarantine, with tests for all suspected patients and their isolation from the rest of the population, the number of deaths by Covid-19 in the country would not exceed 44,300, according to London Imperial College. It can be concluded from the foregoing that it was an irresponsible act to have eased the precarious social isolation that existed to resume economic activity because it caused unnecessary suffering and death in Brazil. Today, the press reports that Bolsonaro has vetoed provisions of the LDO (Budgetary Guidelines Law) that would shield federal government spending on the purchase and distribution of vaccines against Covid 19 in addition to other disbursements to deal with the pandemic. On the other hand, it preserved in the Budget the main projects defended by the Ministry of Defense, such as the renewal of the FAB’s fighter fleet and the development of nuclear powered submarines. This decision shows the absurdity of Bolsonaro consider that vaccines are less important than FAB fighters and nuclear submarines.
In Brazil, the fight against the spread of the new Coronavirus is aggravated by an irresponsible President of the Republic. Jair Bolsonaro is the biggest obstacle to making urgent decisions to reduce the evolution of contagion, save lives and guarantee family income, jobs and the survival of companies. Bolsonaro attacks public health, disregarding technical determinations and the experiences of other countries. Even before the virus arrived, public services and the Brazilian economy were already dramatically weakened by the neoliberal agenda that has been imposed on the country since 1990 and deepened by the Bolsonaro government. At this moment, it is necessary to mobilize, without limits, all the public resources necessary to save lives. Bolsonaro is unable to continue to govern Brazil and to face this crisis, which jeopardizes public health and the Brazilian economy. Bolsonaro commits crimes, defrauds information, lies and encourages chaos, taking advantage of the population’s despair, above all, of the most vulnerable.
Brazil needs national unity and understanding from the Brazilian people to face the pandemic and promote the resumption of the economy, not a president who contradicts the Public Health authorities and submits everyone’s lives to his authoritarian political interests. Bolsonaro is more than a political problem, it has become a public health problem and to the resumption of national development. Bolsonaro lacks greatness. He urgently needs to be removed from power and answer for the crimes he is committing against the Brazilian people. Impeachment already for Bolsonaro.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, 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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