Bolsonaro Put on Notice by House Speaker Lira on Virus Response

(Bloomberg) -- One of Brazil’s most powerful politicians had a pointed message for President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday: ramp up the government’s response to tackle one of the world’s worst coronavirus crisis or face the consequences.

Lower house Speaker Arthur Lira, an ally of the president, said in a speech to fellow legislators that he’s “raising the yellow flag” warning. Without naming names, Lira noted that Congress has the means to deal with situations where poor judgment spirals out of control.

”Congress’ political remedies are well known, all of them bitter. Some are fatal,” Lira said. While the speaker didn’t use the word impeachment, the message was clear in a country were two presidents were brought down by Congress since the early 1990s.

Lira said the pandemic requires urgent action and a drastic shift in approach to address “the country’s worst humanitarian disgrace.” While stressing that officials at all levels of government may have made mistakes, Lira insisted that “those who have more responsibilities have a great obligation to correct themselves faster.”

Lira said he would suspend the voting of any measure not related to the pandemic over the next two weeks.

Since the pandemic hit Brazil, Bolsonaro has consistently downplayed its severity, stressing the need to keep the economy open, while also shunning vaccinations. On Wednesday, Brazil became just the second country to surpass 300,000 Covid deaths.

The country’s struggle to secure supplies and coordinate a nationwide campaign between the federal government and its 27 states means just 6% of the population have received a jab.

Lira’s speech came hours after he met with Bolsonaro and other top officials to discuss a unified response to the pandemic at a time when the disease is raging like wildfire across Latin America’s largest economy.

Under pressure from allies and business leaders, Bolsonaro promised in a nationwide speech Tuesday that he would expedite mass vaccination efforts and said life will go back to normal very soon.

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