Brazil General Discussion 2019: It's Slammer Time!

[buritobr]

General Hamilton Mourão is very bad. He has very right-wing views and he is a little stupid. But he is the lesser of the evils comparing to Jair Bolsonaro. At least, Mourão doesn't have anti-science and religious fundamentalist views.
Jair Bolsonaro was a captain of the army in the 1980s and he was fired. Hamilton Mourão got retired from the army only in March 2018, when he decided to become Bolsonaro's running mate. A Mourão administration would increase the power of the military. This is not too bad: Bolsonaro's military ministers are not as bad as his civilian ministers.

[buritobr]

Lula is in parole because he served more than 1/6 of the sentence, but he is still sentenced and so he is not allowed to run. Besides, this week, Lula told that he doesn't want to run in 2022 because he is too old and tired. He was born in 1945.
The nominee of the left will be probably Fernando Haddad again, or Ciro Gomes again or Flavio Dino, governor of Maranhão who is making a good administration. Dino belongs to the Communist Party, although he is not communist.
The nominee of the center-right will be probably João Doria, governor of São Paulo, Sérgio Moro or Luciano Huck, a TV star.

[buritobr]

More than 10 thousand brazilians lost their lives because of the covid.
Maybe this number is highing. Some people who passed away were not tested.

[buritobr]

Video of the meeting with all ministers in April 22nd showed Bolsonaro speaking that he wanted to change the director of the Federal Police in order to avoid investigation of his son, who has close links to the "militia" in Rio de Janeiro. Of course this is an offense: appointing people for public office according to personal interests. There is a legal justification for the impeachment. However it is still not clear if there will be 2/3 of the votes of the House.

[buritobr]

Datafolha poll, 2,000 people interviewed, May 28th
Rating of Bolsonaro administration
33% Good/Very good
22% Regular
43% Bad/Very bad
This poll has an error in the sample: 63% of the interviewed people answered that they voted for Bolsonaro in the runoff in 2018. He had 55%. So, the good/very good is overestimated. Other polls show ~25% for good/Very good and ~50% for bad/very bad

[buritobr]

Federal Police caught cell phones and computers of congresspeople and businesspeople who were participating in a pro-Bolsonaro propaganda network. This network used to spread fake news against Bolsonaro opponents through the Whatsapp. The investigation of the Federal Police might show further evidence about this network.

[buritobr]

During the time of social distancing, there were only pro-Bolsonaro rallies (with very few people). Today was different.
In São Paulo, anti-fascist fans of the soccer teams Corinthians, São Paulo, Palmeiras and Santos made a rally at Avenida Paulista, and there was some conflict against the pro-Bolsonaro rally.
In Rio de Janeiro, there was a "black lives matter" protest in front of the palace of the state government (everybody wearing masks, of course). Last week, João Pedro, a black 14 year old boy was murdered by the police during an operation in a favela in Rio de Janeiro. And the protesters followed the wave of protests after Floyd's assassination.

[buritobr]

Queiroz was arrested!

Brazilian police arrest Bolsonaro ally in corruption inquiry
Arrest of Fabrício Queiroz is connected to investigation involving president’s son

Police have arrested a longstanding friend of Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, in connection with a corruption inquiry involving Bolsonaro’s son.

Reports in the Brazilian media said civil police investigators arrested Fabrício Queiroz, a former police officer who has known Bolsonaro since the 1980s, on Thursday morning in Atibaia, a town 40 miles north of São Paulo.

The property where Queiroz was arrested is reportedly owned by Frederick Wassef, a lawyer who represents Bolsonaro and his son Flávio. Queiroz previously worked for Flávio Bolsonaro, who is now a senator.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/18/brazilian-police-arrest-bolsonaro-ally-in-corruption-inquiry

[buritobr]

The arrest of Queiroz can bring some information about violation of the law committed by the Bolsonaro family. This information is not directly related to the possibility of impeachment. The crimes which could be revealed were not committed during the administration, so, cannot be used in an impeachment process. But these facts can destroy even more Bolsonaro's approval rate, and so, these facts increase the probability of having votes of 2/3 of the House and Senate.
The impeachment can be justified by the mismanagement of the covid19 and by the attempt to change the director of the Federal Police in Rio de Janeiro in order to avoid investigation of the son.

[buritobr]

The biggest left-wing party is still PT (Workers Party). PT has 54 representatives in the House. PDT (Democratic Labor Party) has 28. PSOL (Party of Socialism and Liberty) has 10. PCdoB (Communist Party of Brazil) has 8.
PT has the biggest support, but has the biggest opposition too. 1/4 of the voters would always vote for Lula or someone endorsed by him, but 1/2 of the voters would never vote for Lula, no matter the opponent. Because of the big opposition received by Lula, Ciro Gomes (PDT) is trying to build an independent bloc with Marina Silva (REDE). He thinks that being too close to Lula could damage his image. Ciro Gomes had 13% in the first round in 2018, he casted the vote for Haddad in the runoff, but he refused to join his campaign. He was in vacation in Europe during the runoff campaign. Ciro Gomes has a lower floor than Lula, but he expects to have a higher ceiling. Flavio Dino (PCdoB), governor of the state of Maranhão, hopes to run for president in 2022. He has good relation with both Lula and Ciro.
PT, PDT and PCdoB are center-left parties. PSOL, in the far-left (not so far anymore nowadays), has fewer votes because it still not able to have the votes of the working class. However, PSOL is the favorite party of the left in the universities, and since professors and students are more active, we can expect a growing base for PSOL.

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Datafolha poll 2016 people interview by phone on June 24th 2020

Rate Bolsonaro administration: good, regular, bad

Total: 32, 23, 44

Men: 36, 23, 41
Women: 28, 23, 48

16-24 years: 21, 25, 54
25-34 years: 33, 27, 39
35-44 years: 37, 21, 41
45-59 years: 34, 23, 42
60- years: 33, 19, 47

Elementary: 33, 25, 40
High School: 32, 24, 43
College: 29, 18, 53

0-2 minimum wages: 29, 25, 44
2-5 minimum wages: 35, 22, 43
5-10 minimum wages: 33, 17, 50
10- minimum wages: 34, 14, 52

Southeast: 29, 23, 47
South: 42, 24, 33
Northeast: 27, 20, 52
Centerwest/North: 38, 26, 36

Metro: 28, 21, 49
Countryside: 34, 24, 41

White: 37, 20, 42
Brown: 30, 25, 43
Black: 20, 24, 55
Asian: 27, 19, 52
Native: 34, 21, 45

[buritobr]

Interesting that his approvals on Indigenous Brazilians is so high. I would have thought it would be bad considering his actions in the Amazon.

Maybe this result was biased because of the small size of the sample. 2,000 answered this poll. The size of this sample is OK. But only 3% was indigenous. So, 60 people who answered this polls were indigenous. This is not a reliable sample.

Anyway, Bolsonaro's administration is a disaster converning the reserves in the Amazon forest (well, the administration is a disaster in every issue). But not all the indigenous people live in reserves. Bolsonaro is trying to allow mining activities inside the reserves. And some people in Amazon who work in mining activies are indigenous people (or at least they have some ancestry).

[buritobr]

When Bolsonaro came back from Florida on March, members of his staff were infected by the coronavirus. He did an examination too and he didn't want to show the result. So, many people though that the result was positive. After a request by the Supreme Court, he showed the result of two tests, which showed negative. Many people though these tests were fake.
Now, on July, the test showed a positive result. So, he really was not infected on March. Probably, he tried to hide the result of the test on March in order to show to his herd that he don't follow the orders of the juditiary branch and of the media because the juditiary branch and the media are evil.

[buritobr]

A vacine against the coronavirus was developed in a partnership between a chinese laboratory and the University of São Paulo. Tomorrow, this vacine will be tested in 9 thousand volunteers in Brazil. We hope a good result!

[buritobr]

Magazine Piauí showed that during a meeting with the ministers, which took place on May 22nd 2020, Bolsonaro suggested a self-coup against the Supreme Court, like the one Fujimori did in Peru in 1992. Three ministers are generals from the army, and according to the magazine, Bolsonaro was asking the military to support the coup. The magazine said that one of the members of the meeting, which was not identified told the magazine what happened. There was no recording of the meeting, like the one which took place at April 22nd. After Piauí's article, Bolsonaro neither denied nor confirmed the content of the meeting. If there is proof of what he spoke at the meeting, it would be one of the many motives for an impeachment process.
 https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/materia/vou-intervir/

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Datafolha poll August 2020
Good/Very good, Regular, Bad/Very bad

Total: 37, 27, 34

Men: 42, 29, 29
Women: 33, 26, 39

16-24: 26, 31, 41
25-34: 41, 26, 32
35-44: 45, 26, 29
45-59: 39, 26, 34
60-: 34, 29, 35

Elementary: 40, 31, 27
High School: 36, 29, 34
College: 34, 18, 47

0-2 minimum wages: 35, 33, 31
2-5 minimum wages: 40, 21, 37
5-10 minimum wages: 40, 20, 40
>10 minimum wages: 40, 13, 47

Southeast: 36, 24, 39
South: 42, 26, 31
Northeast: 33, 30, 35
North/Center-west: 42, 31, 25

Metro area: 33, 25, 41
Countryside: 40, 29, 29

White: 40, 23, 36
Brown: 37, 29, 31
Black: 25, 27, 48
Asian: 40, 36, 25


How can 37% support him?
Well, many of the 105K covid deaths in Brazil happened because he didn't support the social distancing, so, it was harder to make it serious. However, the social distancing took place anyway because of the governors and the mayors. Many people are stupid and cannot understand that more people would have died if there was no social distancing. Since many people care more about the job losses than the life losses, they agree with Bolsonaro's speech.
Besides, his approval rates increased in the group of low income people. The R$600 (US$110) monthly transfer to poor people during the pandemic helped to increase the popularity. Many people don't know that this loan was proposed by the opposition and approved in the congress. The administration wanted only a R$200 transfer.

[buritobr]

Hot news: Eduardo Bolsonaro's friend, political advisor of Bolsonaro family is in jail!

[buritobr]

Yes, some pundits believed that Bolsonaro became more moderate after the arrest of Queiroz, but no

[buritobr]

There is a ongoing dispute inside Bolsonaro's administration.

Concerning economics, Bolsonaro is an exception in the group of the world far-right leaders. He is the only one who supports free-market fundamentalism, unlike Donald Trump, Mateusz Morawiecki, Viktor Orbán, Rodrigo Duterte, Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini, who support economic nationalism and a social safety net, in order to make them more attractive to low-income voters than center-right leaders.
The Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes had a PhD in Chicago in the 1970s and has the Pinochet's Chicago Boys as the model.
Actually, Bolsonaro has no own ideas about economics. His mind is a blank paper sheet. In the 1990s, he supported economic nationalism and criticized privatizations conducted by Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration, because many generals supported right-wing economic nationalism and the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985), unlike the Chilean military dictatorship, conducted a state-led capitalist development. But recently, Bolsonaro converted to free-market fundamentalism because of this guru Olavo de Carvalho and because of businessmen who support him.
However, some supporters of Bolsonaro in the congress are not satisfied with Guedes' austerity. Paulo Guedes wants to keep the (stupid) constitutional spending ceiling, created during Temer administration. The congressmen who support Bolsonaro want to increase public investiment so that Bolsonaro can be reelected in 2022.
We still don't know which side Bolsonaro will support.
The mainstream media, which is pro center-right PSDB, some weeks ago, was on the same side of the left, criticizing Bolsonaro because of his mismanagement of the pandemics and mismanagement of the environment. Now, mainstream media, unlike the left, is criticizing Bolsonaro for not being fiscal conservative enough.

[buritobr]

STJ (the federal court which is one level below STF, the Supreme Court) decided that governor of Rio de Janeiro Wilson Witzel should be ousted because of corruption related to the purchase of equipments to hospitals for covid treatment. Pastor Everaldo, president of Witzel's party, was arrested because of this scandal. Witzel is a former Bolsonaro's ally who became an enemy, Everaldo did Bolsonaro's evangelic baptism.
There are lots of evidence of this corruption scandal. However, there was no reason for the justice to decide that the governor should be ousted. There is already an ongoing impeachment process in the State Assembly. It is possible that some judge of the STJ is trying to please Bolsonaro in order to get his appointment to the Supreme Court.

[buritobr]

When venezuelans make big lines to buy basic food, this hunger is usually related to "socialism"

In this week, a package of 5 kg of rice, the most basic food in Brazil, is costing R$40 (=US$7.50) in the supermarkets in Brazil. This increase in the price happened because of the fall of producion in other exporting countries, and, so, the international price increased. The rise in the international price was transmited to the domestic market because of the end of the stocks policy. So, there is socialist hunger, but there is free-market hunger too.

[buritobr]

Inflation is still very low because of the low economic activity. The inflation of the year 2020 until July is 0.46%. The accumulated inflation in the last 12 months is 2.31%. But of course the rise of the food price in September will push the inflation, specially for the lower class, whose share of food in the total household budget is bigger.

[buritobr]

One issue that became a conversation topic in Brazil this week was the interview of the famous singer Caetano Veloso in a talk show.
He told that during a long time of his life he was a liberal. He was exiled during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) becaue he was anti-authoritarism and not because he was a radical leftist. But recently, when he met the young communist youtuber Jones Manoel, fan of the italian historian Domenico Losurdo, Caetano Veloso discovered many hipocrisies of liberalism and started to have more sympaties to marxism. He realized how absurd it is to put Hitler and Stalin at the same level (what many liberals do), but of course, Caetano didn't become a Stalin's fan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSuSAaO5c80&t=1s

[buritobr]

Bolsonaro's speech at the UN Assembly: no surprises, all this sh**t we have already expected, the target audience was neither the international community nor the brazilian people, but only his cattle

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Ibope Poll September 20th
Evaluation of Bolsonaro administration
40% good, very good
29% regular
29% bad, very bad