Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s attempt to replace electronic voting machines with paper ballots failed in Congress recently. But this may not deter him from sowing confusion ahead of the 2022 presidential elections. On August 10, Mr. Bolsonaro’s proposal fell short of the majority needed to effect a constitutional amendment. This is the closest the President has come to carrying out his threats to thwart the functioning of representative institutions.
Sliding popularity
The fiery far-right nationalist President warned in July that either there will be a clean election or no election next year, alleging without evidence that electronic voting machines, in vogue since 1996, were highly susceptible to manipulation. Mr. Bolsonaro has in the past insisted that but for fraud, he would have clinched the 2018 presidential contest in the first round. Several sitting and former Supreme Court justices have emphasised the absence of any record of malpractices under the electronic voting system, even as supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro have demanded changes. While the superior electoral court is probing Mr. Bolsonaro for abuse of office, the Supreme Court is examining a charge of guilt on grounds of spreading fake news.
Mr. Bolsonaro, who assumed office in January 2019, has seen a rapid slide in his ratings following his callous mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed over half a million lives. He is also embroiled in criminal investigations relating to financial irregularities and dereliction of duty in the government’s procurement of the COVID-19 vaccines. In a deal that was subsequently suspended, Brazilian authorities reportedly agreed to pay much more than the original price quoted by Bharat Biotech, which is producing Covaxin. Experts have suggested in The British Medical Journal that Mr. Bolsonaro wilfully allowed the contagion to spread to create herd immunity, a strategy that could amount to crimes against humanity.
By one estimate, more than 50% of Brazilians think that Mr. Bolsonaro must be removed from office. As per another, the former President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is likely to emerge the frontrunner after his corruption conviction was overturned in March, could win the presidency in the first round of next year’s contest.
Admirer of the military
While his waning popularity may have sparked the recent assault on the election commission, Mr. Bolsonaro has long remained an unapologetic admirer of the country’s previous military rulers. Many former generals hold cabinet ranks in his government. With close ideological affinity to Brazil’s extreme right anti-communist icon Olavo de Carvalho, the Brazilian President lamented on one occasion that the dictators’ mistake was to stop at torturing rather than killing dissidents.
Within months of his ascent, Mr. Bolsonaro instructed the armed forces to commemorate the anniversary of the 1964 coup which brought the military to power. In a sign of the prevalent sharp polarisation, the move was equated in the Left circles with Holocaust denial, while Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters hailed it a revolution to counter communism. The prosecutor general’s office declared that the event would be tantamount to celebrating an unconstitutional dictatorship, while another court ruled the event incompatible with the country’s democratic reconstruction. In April this year, the leaders of all three branches of the armed forces resigned after Mr. Bolsonaro replaced the Defence Minister who allegedly said that the armed forces owed loyalty to the constitution and were not the President’s personal force.
Arguably, no leader among the world’s large democracies befits the epithet ‘elected dictator’ more than Mr. Bolsonaro. As the number of petitions for his impeachment increase, the President will probably further intensify his shrill rhetoric against the courts and Brazil’s Congress until the next elections.
Garimella Subramaniam is Director - Strategic Initiatives, AgnoShin Tecchnologies Pvt Ltd