President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil was struggling to govern effectively long before the explosive resignation speech of his star cabinet minister, who basically called his soon-to-be former boss a criminal.
Mr. Bolsonaro became a president without a political party in November, after falling out with leaders of the Social Liberal Party, which had backed his presidential bid.
Several political allies — including two of Mr. Bolsonaro’s sons — are under investigation in a series of criminal and legislative inquiries. They include suspected money-laundering schemes and defamatory disinformation campaigns waged online.
In recent weeks, Mr. Bolsonaro’s strikingly dismissive response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he has called a “measly cold” that cannot be allowed to throttle economic growth, generated calls for impeachment at home and bewilderment abroad.
Given those challenges, which have left Mr. Bolsonaro deeply isolated, the dramatic exit of Justice Minister Sergio Moro on Friday was seen by critics and supporters of the president as a potentially destructive blow to his grip on power as his second year in office gets underway amid a public health crisis and a recession.
Known for his bombast and braggadocio, Mr. Bolsonaro may be gambling that lawmakers will not dare to impeach him and put Brazil, Latin America’s largest country, through another political spectacle like the one that felled a predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, four years ago.
It remains unclear what the recent developments will mean for his support base, which includes evangelical Christians and a stable of military leaders he appointed to top jobs.
Mr. Moro, a former federal judge who became the most iconic figure of an anti-corruption crusade that sparked hope across Latin America in recent years, resigned in protest after Mr. Bolsonaro fired the federal police chief, Maurício Valeixo.
In an extraordinary televised address delivered Friday morning from the Justice Ministry in Brasília, the capital, Mr. Moro said Mr. Bolsonaro intended to appoint a new police head that would do his political bidding by keeping him abreast of investigations and compiling intelligence dossiers at the president’s request.
Mr. Bolsonaro intends to appoint Alexandre Ramagem, the current head of Brazil’s intelligence agency, as the new police chief, according to reports in the Brazilian press. Mr. Ramagem was Mr. Bolsonaro’s head of security during his presidential campaign.
Mr. Moro’s accusation prompted Attorney General Augusto Aras to ask the Supreme Court to open a criminal investigation into the conduct Mr. Moro had described, saying that if confirmed, it amounted to obstruction of justice and other crimes.
[…]
Gilmar Mendes, a Supreme Court justice, said Saturday that it was hard to predict just how damaging the investigations will be for Mr. Bolsonaro.
“Up until recently, I had the sense that the political class had no interest in talking about impeachment,” he said. “Now this is being discussed again with greater frequency.”
Mr. Bolsonaro appeared to grasp the political peril he faced when he delivered a long, defiant address Friday night in which he called Mr. Moro a liar and opportunist.
“The government endures,” Mr. Bolsonaro said toward the end, flanked by his remaining ministers.
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José Augusto Rosa, a congressional leader who heads a conservative pro-gun faction colloquially called the “bullet caucus,” called Mr. Moro’s departure a self-inflicted wound for a president struggling to manage the response to the pandemic and the resulting economic contraction, which economists predict will be about five percent this year.
“Moro was a pillar of stability in the government’s base, representing the fight against corruption and organized crime,” said Mr. Rosa, whose faction has broadly supported Mr. Bolsonaro. “This is a huge blow.”
A spokeswoman for Vem Pra Rua, an influential anti-corruption movement, said Mr. Moro’s resignation would erode Mr. Bolsonaro’s support base. The movement led massive demonstrations that helped to weaken the leftist party Mr. Bolsonaro defeated in his presidential bid.
“It was an ugly betrayal,” Adelaide de Oliveira, a spokeswoman for the group, said in reference to Mr. Bolsonaro’s alienation of Mr. Moro. “All Brazil poured out into the streets and we fought for many years to empower someone who genuinely wanted to do away with corruption in the country. Sadly, the dream ended today.”
While several Latin American leaders have seen a bounce in public opinion as they imposed strict quarantine measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Mr. Bolsonaro’s popularity has dropped amid what critics call a flailing response. The president’s opposition to social distancing measures led him to fire his popular health minister last week and pick fights with some of the country’s most powerful governors.
He and Trump truly are two peas in a pod aren’t they?
I wish them well. But it’s not easy to dislodge these nuts.