“So what? I'm sorry, but what do you want me to do? I am the Messiah, but I do not perform miracles”. With these incredible words, the president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, whose popularity has been falling apart since the beginning of the coronavirus emergency (an emergency perceived only by local governors and the population, certainly not by him), commented on a piece of news that makes you shiver : the green-gold country, which until a few weeks ago counted the dead on the fingers of one hand, recorded almost 28 only yesterday, 500 April. The total is now more than 5.000 and has even surpassed China. Brazil today, according only to official data which as we know are impossible to decipher, is the eleventh country in the world by number of infections: nothing dramatic, except that it is also the only one that has not adopted the lockdown at a global level. federal but only of individual states, and only for short periods.
In fact, while in many areas of Brazil normal life has returned (or has never been abandoned), the epidemic is making its way. The images of the mass graves of Manaus, a city in the heart of the Amazon where Covid has also arrived, have gone around the world, thanks to the air connections with the rest of the country and with the United States. Even indigenous tribes have launched an appeal to contain the spread of the virus, which would cause a massacre if it were to reach even the most remote reserves: “Here the coronavirus means extinction”. However, President Bolsonaro seems to care relatively little about all this: his consideration of the Amazon and of ethnic minorities has never seemed worthy of a country like Brazil. “No one has ever denied that there would have been deaths – dismissed the journalists -. I have always said that the virus would reach 70% of the population”.
The truth is that Bolsonaro seems to have his days, if not his weeks numbered: the government is falling apart and after the farewell of the Minister of Health Super Minister of Justice Sergio Moro has also abandoned, the magistrate of the investigation Lava Jato (Brazilian Mani Pulite), the man who sent former president Lula to prison, effectively ousting him from the presidential elections which then saw the triumph of the conservative leader. Moro in Brazil is a controversial character but for some a national hero, e his resignation make Bolsonaro's popularity wobble. Not only that: in the last few days the possible involvement of one of his sons, Carlos, in the gunshot murder - which took place in 2018 - of Rio's city councilor Marielle Franco, an event that had shocked the country, has also emerged.
What would happen if Bolsonaro was ousted by popular acclaim, given that even the generals who support him (and who are ministers in his government) begin to question his leadership? One would not go to the vote, as would happen in other countries, but "Bozo" (as his denigrators call him) would be replaced by his deputy until the end of the mandate, in 2022.
