Bolsonaro potential new president of Brazil serious implications

[perry]

Brazil could become a military dictatorship and looking at the new cabinet of the upcoming president Bolsonaro this is a huge possibility. I still cannot understand how Brazilian people can lurch from lula to this it does not make sense

 

[camberiu]

Brazil could become a military dictatorship and looking at the new cabinet of the upcoming president Bolsonaro this is a huge possibility. I still cannot understand how Brazilian people can lurch from lula to this it does not make sense

That is nonsense, just as much as the claim that if Haddad got elected, Brazil would turn into Venezuela.
Neither case is a realistic possibility. Brazil has strong institutions to prevent such things. And Bolsonaro has a rejection rate of over 40% that goes across every social class, including the military. Even if it did not, markers would tank of either case occurred, destroying the currency with it.
I predicted here years ago that Dilma would not finish her term because she was putting the Real at risk. She didn't. Anyone who threatens the Real will commit political suicide, and a military coup is akin of shooting the Real on the head. With a rocket launcher.
Any claims of military coup is fear mongering nonsense.

 

[London2Baires]

That is nonsense, just as much as the claim that if Haddad got elected, Brazil would turn into Venezuela.
Neither case is a realistic possibility. Brazil has strong institutions to prevent such things. And Bolsonaro has a rejection rate of over 40% that goes across every social class, including the military. Even if it did not, markers would tank of either case occurred, destroying the currency with it.
I predicted here years ago that Dilma would not finish her term because she was putting the Real at risk. She didn't. Anyone who threatens the Real will commit political suicide, and a military coup is akin of shooting the Real on the head. With a rocket launcher.
Any claims of military coup is fear mongering nonsense.

Maybe not a military coup in the traditional sense, but if he puts all his military generals in high level positions in the executive branch, and then takes over the judicial branch (he has already stated he wants to double the number of supreme court judges, and appoint all the new ones himself!)

You will then have military and partisan forces ruling substantial parts of the three branches of government.

Don't forget, facism has started in very similar ways before. In both Germany and Italy we saw this with Musulini and Adolf respectively.

We are currently seeing a global trend towards proto facist forms of government , those that in the 30's stayed silent or said 'these things can't happen in civilized countries' and 'we have strong institutions' etc were sadly mistaken.

I fear for the way the world is going towards populist facista right wing politics. The least we should all do is be vigilant , and not forget the lessons of the past.

As a final note, I mention that Latin America has a long history of militarism and fachista ideology, Peron's idol was Musulini, let's not forget.

Cheers!

 

[jantango]

 

[camberiu]

Maybe not a military coup in the traditional sense, but if he puts all his military generals in high level positions in the executive branch, and then takes over the judicial branch (he has already stated he wants to double the number of supreme court judges, and appoint all the new ones himself!)

Is this scenario technically possible? Sure. Is it likely. I find the odds of that extremely slim.
"All his generals" are like a handful of them, all infantry. One of the misunderstandings around Bolsonaro is that people think most of he top brass supports him, which is not the case at all. He is a grunt. An infantry captain who started his career as a grunt. He is popular with infantry conscripts and infantry NCOs. But the elite of the Brazilian Army, the professional divisions such as Electronic Warfare, Intelligence, Armored/Mechanized, Engineering, Air Cavalry, etc... despises him, as they view him as a brute and simpleton. His popularity is even lower with the Airforce and the Navy (the most prestigious branch of the Brazilian military). Unlike say, Argentina, the practices of torture, oppression, assassination, where always controversial within the Brazilian military. As much so that in the early 70s, the army hardliners were removed from power by the army moderates, exactly because they could not stomach the abuse, the tortures and the assassinations. All political prisoners and guerrillas were freed and given full amnesty (Dilma and my own father among them), and the gradual process of returning to a normal constitutional democracy was defined as goal by the army rulers.
So thugs like Bolsonaro have very little support among the top brass, which today is made up mostly by moderates. Even General Geisel, who ruled Brazil from 1974 until 1979, who lead the process of return to a normal democracy and is considered within the army as the model of what a Brazilian general should be, referred to Bolsonaro on his memoir as a "piece of shit" and that is a good reflection of how he is viewed across the board. So it is not like he has lots of generals to pick from.
Also, even if he did, most appointees need to be approved by Congress. So does the increased number of judges. Does Bolsonaro has the majority of Congress? No, he does not.
It is important to remember that both Lula and Dilma tried the same approach of populating the executive and supreme court with their puppets, and even with a much broader Congressional base than Bolsonaro has today, they failed. And to add on top of that, Bolsonaro has been in congress as a representative for 30 years and has not been able to get a single one of his bills passed. Not one, in 30 years. He was also unable to get a single mainstream politician or political figure to agree to be his vice-president. Even the most rabid anti-PT figures, like Janaina Pascual, refused to share the ticket with him. So he had to rely on an obscure pariah retired infantry general to be his vice-president, after his 7 previous choices rejected his invitation. That speaks volumes about this lacking ability to form alliances and coalitions. Hitler, Mussolini and even Chavez where skilled politicians who were able to build coalitions and bring different groups together. Bolsonaro has never been able to display such ability, even on this election, where he ran as an outsider without any broad political coalition behind him.

So unless he is able to completely transform himself, I don't see him accomplishing this "soft coup" that you speak of.

 

[perry]

Is this scenario technically possible? Sure. Is it likely. I find the odds of that extremely slim.
"All his generals" are like a handful of them, all infantry. One of the misunderstandings around Bolsonaro is that people think most of he top brass supports him, which is not the case at all. He is a grunt. An infantry captain who started his career as a grunt. He is popular with infantry conscripts and infantry NCOs. But the elite of the Brazilian Army, the professional divisions such as Electronic Warfare, Intelligence, Armored/Mechanized, Engineering, Air Cavalry, etc... despises him, as they view him as a brute and simpleton. His popularity is even lower with the Airforce and the Navy (the most prestigious branch of the Brazilian military). Unlike say, Argentina, the practices of torture, oppression, assassination, where always controversial within the Brazilian military. As much so that in the early 70s, the army hardliners were removed from power by the army moderates, exactly because they could not stomach the abuse, the tortures and the assassinations. All political prisoners and guerrillas were freed and given full amnesty (Dilma and my own father among them), and the gradual process of returning to a normal constitutional democracy was defined as goal by the army rulers.
So thugs like Bolsonaro have very little support among the top brass, which today is made up mostly by moderates. Even General Geisel, who ruled Brazil from 1974 until 1979, who lead the process of return to a normal democracy and is considered within the army as the model of what a Brazilian general should be, referred to Bolsonaro on his memoir as a "piece of shit" and that is a good reflection of how he is viewed across the board. So it is not like he has lots of generals to pick from.
Also, even if he did, most appointees need to be approved by Congress. So does the increased number of judges. Does Bolsonaro has the majority of Congress? No, he does not.
It is important to remember that both Lula and Dilma tried the same approach of populating the executive and supreme court with their puppets, and even with a much broader Congressional base than Bolsonaro has today, they failed. And to add on top of that, Bolsonaro has been in congress as a representative for 30 years and has not been able to get a single one of his bills passed. Not one, in 30 years. He was also unable to get a single mainstream politician or political figure to agree to be his vice-president. Even the most rabid anti-PT figures, like Janaina Pascual, refused to share the ticket with him. So he had to rely on an obscure pariah retired infantry general to be his vice-president, after his 7 previous choices rejected his invitation. That speaks volumes about this lacking ability to form alliances and coalitions. Hitler, Mussolini and even Chavez where skilled politicians who were able to build coalitions and bring different groups together. Bolsonaro has never been able to display such ability, even on this election, where he ran as an outsider without any broad political coalition behind him.

So unless he is able to completely transform himself, I don't see him accomplishing this "soft coup" that you speak of.

You are completely underestimating Bolsonaro. He is extreme and now he is the leader of Brazil. I suggest to the readers here to acquaint themselves with this most dangerous person through his vile quotes.

https://www.elperiodico.com/es/inte...-el-blanco-favorito-de-sus-exabrutpos-7115801

 

[camberiu]

You are completely underestimating Bolsonaro.

And you are underestimating the Republic. If Bolsonaro can do what you fear, then the problem is not really him, but the fact that our institutions don't work.

 

[camberiu]

Brazilian Army Seeks to Shield Its Image In Case Bolsonaro's Government Fails (Google Translate. Original in Portuguese here)

Even with the embarrassment of the presidential campaign Jair Bolsonaro, members of the Army are beginning a movement in the attempt to shield the image of the Force in case of failure of the eventual government of the retired captain. The military's fear is that a downfall of the right-wing project will be placed in the account of the whole barracks, damaging a fundamental asset in current times: the trust of the population in the institution.

The subject is one of the topics on the agenda of the High Command of the Army that meets this week in Brasilia - say, the meeting was already scheduled previously. The question is complex. Bolsonaro, on the verge of becoming Brazil's elected president, is not the candidate for the dreams of the most qualified officers of the force. On the contrary, he has always been seen as a trade unionist - a defender of corporate interests - who stood in the way of military qualification. Worse, a controversial retired captain was more in the way than helping the corporate image.

Some of the Army officers, for example, voted for other candidates in the first round, simply because they mistrusted Bolsonaro. With the arrival of the second round, membership was total, despite some fears of the program in the economic areas and, surprise, security. The main names of the reserve, like General Augusto Heleno, entered the project of the federal deputy and, thus, broke resistances for the adhesion once and for all. But that does not mean that concern about the image has been overlooked, to the point of fearing the amount of military that would migrate to the government.

Movements
According to those who closely follow the movements of the Army military, there will be pressure for indications from the class in the second-tier positions. This is what the High Command meeting this week will try to analyze and, depending on the deepening of the theme, propose recommendations, precisely not to mix the Bolsonaro government with the barracks. In a way, this is already being done among Navy personnel, who try to keep the presidential campaign away - the same can not be said of the Aeronautics, despite the restrictions of brigadiers.

Last week the Courier showed that with the prospect of Bolsonaro's victory, the military is already betting on replacing General Eduardo Villas Bôas in command of the Army. If the presidential candidate follows the tradition, which determines that the choice must be made from the criterion of seniority, the new head of the Force will be Edson Leal Pujol, current head of the Department of Science and Technology. This tradition was interrupted by Dilma Rousseff precisely in the choice of Villas Bôas, in 2105. Born in Dom Pedrito (RS), Pujol is 63 years old and was the first of the class at the Military Academy of Agulhas Negras, Aman, in 1977. In 2013, was appointed Peace Force commander at the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

In the list of the listed ones still are the generals Paulo Humberto, chief of the General Staff of the Army; Mauro Cid, head of the Department of Education and Culture; and Carlos Barcellos, of the Northern Military Command. All four officers are from Bolsonaro's class at the Academy of Black Agulhas in the late 1970s, and have held talks with the deputy on the guidelines for a possible government. The question to be observed here is who will send more to the troop: the new commander or General Heleno, who has already been announced as Minister of Defense of the eventual government.

Pataquada
One of the best examples of the military in not confusing the image of the Forces with the new government is in the statement of Representative Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the presidential candidate. During a speech before the first round of the election, he threatened that if the Supreme Court challenged his father's candidacy, he will have to pay to see what happens. "Will they have that same strength? People even play there: if you want to close the FTS, you know what you do? You do not even have a jeep. Send a soldier and a corporal. It is not wanting to demean the soldier and the corporal, no. "The statement did not hurt badly only among the ministers of the Court, but also among the military.

 

[perry]

This post was sent by a Brazilian friend very concerned about the future. Plesse read the translations of what this president Bolsonaro and tell me sincerely that he is not a huge threat to South America and that a military dictatorship is not possible when clearly this is what he desires and now he has the power to impose.


These are Bolsonaro’s repeated declarations in favor of Brazil’s military dictatorship, torture, extrajudicial police killings, and violence against LGBTQs, Afro-Brazilians, women, indigenous peoples, minorities, and political opponents, as well as his opposition to democratic norms and values.

Here is Brazil’s next president in his own words over the years. In the coming months, Brazil and the world will discover if Bolsonaro will make good on these drastic promises when he takes office on January 1, 2019.



“I am in favor of a dictatorship, a regime of exception.”

– Open session of the Câmara dos Deputados, 1993



Interviewer: If you were the President of the Republic today, would you close the National Congress?

“There’s no doubt about it. I’d do a coup on the same day! It [the Congress] doesn’t work! And I’m sure at least 90 percent of the population would throw a party, would applaud, because it does not work. Congress today is good for nothing, brother, it just votes for what the president wants. If he is the person who decides, who rules, who trumps the Congress, then let’s have a coup quickly, go straight to a dictatorship.”

– Câmara Aberta TV program, May 23, 1999



“The pau-de-arara [a torture technique] works. I’m in favor of torture, you know that. And the people are in favor as well.”

– Câmara Aberta TV program, May 23, 1999



“Through the vote you will not change anything in this country, nothing, absolutely nothing! It will only change, unfortunately, when, one day, we start a civil war here and do the work that the military regime did not do. Killing some 30,000, starting with FHC [then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso], not kicking them out, killing! If some innocent people are going to die, fine, in any war innocents die.”

– Câmara Aberta TV program, May 23, 1999



“I will not fight nor discriminate, but if I see two men kissing in the street, I’ll hit them.”

– Folha de São Paulo newspaper, May 19, 2002



“I’m a rapist now. I would never rape you, because you do not deserve it… slut!”

– Rede TV, speaking to Congresswoman Maria do Rosário, November 11, 2003
Right-wing federal deputy and presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, gives a thumbs up to supporters during a rally at Afonso Pena airport in Curitiba, Brazil on March 28, 2018. Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly praised Brazil's two-decade-long military dictatorship, taunted Lula, calling him a "bandit," and challenging him in Curitiba to see "who can get the most people out on to the streets without paying them." / AFP PHOTO / Heuler Andrey (Photo credit should read HEULER ANDREY/AFP/Getty Images)

Bolsonaro gives his signature gun finger salute to supporters during a rally in Curitiba, Brazil on March 28, 2018.

Photo: Hueler Andrey/AFP/Getty Images

“I would be incapable of loving a homosexual child. I’m not going to act like a hypocrite here: I’d rather have my son die in an accident than show up with some mustachioed guy. For me, he would have died.
…
“If your son starts acting a little gay, hit him with some leather, and he’ll change his behavior.”

– Participação Popular, TV Câmara, October 17, 2010



Preta Gil, actress and singer: If your son fell in love with a black woman, what would you do?

“Oh, Preta, I’m not going to discuss promiscuity with whoever it is. I do not run this risk and my children were very well raised and did not live in the type of environment that, unfortunately, you do.”

– CQC, TV Bandeirantes, March 28, 2011



“If a homosexual couple comes to live next to me it will devalue my home! If they walk around holding hands and kissing, that devalues it.”

– Playboy Magazine, June 7, 2011



Interviewer: Are you proud of the story of Hitler’s life?

“No, pride, I don’t have, right?”

Interviewer: Do you like him?

“No. What you have to understand is the following: war is war. He was a great strategist.”

– CQC, TV Bandeirantes, March 26, 2012



Interviewer: Have you ever hit a woman before?

“Yes. I was a boy in Eldorado, a girl was getting in my face…”

Interviewer: Put her against the wall, a few taps? Pah!

“No, well, no… [laughs] I’m married. My wife isn’t going to like this response.”

– CQC, TV Bandeirantes, March 26, 2012



“[Homosexuals] will not find peace. And I have [congressional] immunity to say that I’m homophobic, yes, and very proud of it if it is to defend children in schools.”

– TWTV, June 5, 2013
Brazilian congressman and presidential canditate for the next election, Jair Bolsonaro (L), takes pictures with militaries during an military event in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 3, 2018. (Photo by Nelson ALMEIDA / AFP) (Photo credit should read NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images)

Bolsonaro takes pictures with soldiers during a military event in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 3, 2018.

Photo: Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images

“I would not employ [a woman] with the same salary [of a man]. But there are many women who are competent.”

– SuperPop, RedeTV!, February 15, 2016



“Beyond Brazil above all, since we are a Christian country, God above everyone! It is not this story, this little story of secular state. It is a Christian state, and if a minority is against it, then move! Let’s make a Brazil for the majorities. Minorities have to bow to the majorities! The Law must exist to defend the majorities. Minorities must fit in or simply disappear!”

– Event in Campina Grande, Paraíba, February 8, 2017



“Violence is combated with violence.”

– The Noite with Danilo Gentili, SBT, March 20, 2017



“I went with my three sons. Oh the other one went too, there were four. I have a fifth also. I had four men and on the fifth I had a moment of weakness and a woman came out.”

– Speech at the Hebraica Club, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017



“If I [become president], there won’t be any money for NGOs. These worthless [people] will have to work. If I get there, as far as I’m concerned, every citizen will have a firearm in their home. You will not have a centimeter demarcated for indigenous reserves or quilombolas [settlements of the descendants of escaped and freed slaves that have protected status.]”

– Speech at the Hebraica Club, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017



“Has anyone ever seen a Japanese begging for charity? Because it’s a race that has shame. It’s not like this race that’s down there, or like a minority ruminating here on the side.”

– Speech at the Hebraica Club, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017



“The big problem in Brazil is that the government is at the jugular of businessmen. […] The worker will have to decide: less rights and employment or all the rights and unemployment.”

– Event in Deerfield Beach, FL , October 8, 2017



“I’ll give carte blanche for the police to kill.”

– Event in Deerfield Beach, FL, October 8, 2017



“Since I was single at the time, I used the money from my [congressional] housing stipend to get laid.”

– TV Folha, January 11, 2018



“This group, if they want to stay here, will have to put itself under the law of all of us. Leave or go to jail. These red marginals will be banished from our homeland.”

– Live video address to a rally in São Paulo, October 21, 2018



“You will not have any more NGOs to quench your leftist hunger. It will be a cleansing never before seen in the history of Brazil.”

– Live video address to a rally in São Paulo, October 21, 2018



“You will see a proud Armed Forces which will be collaborating with the future of Brazil. You, petralhada [a derogatory term for Workers’ Party supporters] will see a civilian and military police with a judicial rearguard to enforce the law on your backs.”

– Live video address to a rally in São Paulo, October 21, 2018

 

[camberiu]

This post was sent by a Brazilian friend very concerned about the future. Plesse read the translations of what this president Bolsonaro and tell me sincerely that he is not a huge threat to South America and that a military dictatorship is not possible when clearly this is what he desires and now he has the power to impose.

I don't know how to explain this further to you. Brazil is a constitutional republic. It has a powerful and independent judiciary. It has a powerful and independent bi-cameral parliament in which the new president does not hold the majority. It has a very well organized and well financed opposition that managed to gather 46% of the total votes and controls several states and major cities. it has a free press that is mostly skeptical or hostile towards him. It has an armed forces that have repeatedly and publicly sworn to uphold the CURRENT constitution no matter who wins the presidency and that are keeping him at arms length.
That is how a functioning republic is supposed to work: That even if the masses elect a raging lunatic as a president, there will be enough checks and balances in place so that he can't do much damage. So what he says and what he wants is mostly irrelevant.
Now if you cannot or simply refuse to comprehend that, all I can say is enjoy your new buggy man.