Brazil deserves better than Bolsonaro

When a congressional back-bencher with fringe right-wing ideas took office last year, many Brazilians held their breath. Some hoped and prayed that Jair Bolsonaro might rise to the occasion, moderate his rhetoric and compensate for his lack of executive experience by delegating to a first-rate cabinet. Leave it to the adults in the room — Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, Vice President Hamilton Mourao, and Justice Minister Sergio Moro — and all would turn out well. We know now that was a fever dream. Moro’s acrimonious resignation on April 24, after accusing Bolsonaro of meddling in the justice system, is only the latest symptom.
Less than a year and half on, the former army captain has clearly neither risen to the task nor delegated to the able. Instead Bolsonaro governs by trial and error, second-guessing his ministers in favour of a bilious claque of kin and confidants.
The result: Brazil’s presidency has shrunk even as the country’s challenges grow larger than ever.
In a way, Moro’s exit was a collision foretold. If Guedes was Bolsonaro’s “one-stop shop” for righting Latin America’s biggest market, he has gone conspicuously silent as the coronavirus pandemic roils the economy: When a government panel announced a national rescue plan, he was nowhere to be found.
After Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta drew plaudits for choosing science over faith-based policies
to confront the coronavirus pandemic, Bolsonaro fired him. When uncontrolled fires in the Amazon brought global criticism, Bolsonaro sacked the respected head
of the space agency monitoring the rain forest and blamed the fires on partisan saboteurs.
After presiding as a federal judge over the storied Carwash anti-corruption trials, Moro was hired as Bolsonaro’s Mr Clean in a government pledged to bury the “old politics” of cronyism and payola. To hear it from Bolsonaro, Moro left Brasilia a self-centred liar.
Yet Moro’s parting shot against Bolsonaro had the whiff of an unfinished row, not a rout. “I am always at the country’s disposal,” Moro concluded in his provocative exit message. Despite his questionable Carwash actions, Moro was by far Bolsonaro’s most popular minister. Judging by the markets, he will be missed.
Tellingly, Bolsonaro is bleeding allies and credibility. After an internal row, he abandoned the political party he rode to office 16 months ago, and his new party has yet to pass the eligibility bar by electoral authorities. With no solid legislative base, he has lost control of the congressional agenda.

—Bloomberg