Public Note #17 – The President has lost the conditions to remain in office

The current moment is very serious. It is time to put an end to mismanagement. Today it is necessary to speak to all Brazilians, our multiethnic, multiracial population, with cultural diversity and different political views, 210 million citizens. It is time to speak to the people, the holders and recipients of the country's future.

In 2019, we have witnessed the dismantling of State institutions and structures, in the name of ideological alignments and cultural wars. As of last February, in addition to the onset of the pandemic in our territory, attacks on the constitutional order, democracy, and the rule of law were added to this great dismantling project. They cannot be trivialized, much less naturalized.

As countless scientists warned, COVID-19 would find fertile ground in Brazil for its spread: a continent-country with enormous social inequality and income concentration, a health system undermined by budget cuts and ceilings, precarious basic sanitation, millions of Brazilians living in neighborhoods, communities, and districts without infrastructure, wrecking of public education, an unemployment rate at approximately 13 million people, and a stagnant economy. Added to this situation are the characteristics of the current pandemic – a virus with a high transmission speed and severe symptoms, for which there is still no effective remedy or vaccine yet.

Perhaps immune to the virus – but certainly immune to human suffering – the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, has expressed a notorious lack of concern for Brazilians considering the risk attributed to the agglomerations that he stimulates, due to early return to work, due to a health system that is collapsing in the eyes of all, and also considering the number of deaths from COVID-19, which today total many thousands of cases - about which, by the way, he has allowed himself to make rude and cruel ironies.

But the president's absurdity does not end there. While the country is going through huge suffering, Jair Bolsonaro is creating crises among the government branches. He issues administrative acts to interfere with investigations involving his family. He participates in demonstrations calling for the closure of Congress and the Federal Supreme Court. He manipulates public opinion and even the Armed Forces, propagating the idea of ​​having the unconditional support of the military as a shield for his madness. Finally, the president ceases to govern to dedicate himself to the daily display of his sad figure, in family pantomimes and coup attempts.

Concerned about the future and under the weight of mourning, Brazil needs to have a government that coordinates efforts to overcome the current crisis, starting with listening to the voices that come from Brazilian homes, from the people who are suffering, everywhere. There is no way to accept a ruler who listens only to fanatical, resentful, and manipulative radicals, obsessed with exercising power unlimitedly, through a militia-military regime that violates democratic rules and even the basic sense of decency.

The only thing left to do is to reiterate what has already become evident: Jair Bolsonaro has lost all the conditions for the legitimate exercise of the Presidency of the Republic, due to his incapacity, authoritarian vocation, and the threat he represents to democracy. By sowing unrest, insecurity, and misinformation and, above all, by putting the lives of Brazilians at risk, he must be removed from office. The Arns Commission for the Defense of Human Rights understands that democratic forces must urgently seek ways for this to be done in accordance with the rule of law and in obedience to the Constitution.

José Carlos Dias, president of the Arns Commission for the Defense of Human Rights and former Minister of Justice (during Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s administration); Claudia Costin, former Minister of Administration and Reform (FHC’s administration); José Gregori, former Minister of Justice (FHC’s administration); Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, former Minister of Finance (Sarney’s administration), Minister of Administration and State Reform and Minister of Science and Technology (FHC’s administrations); Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, former Minister of the State Secretariat for Human Rights (FHC’s administration); Paulo Vannuchi, former Minister of Human Rights (Lula’s administration), all founders and hereby representatives of the Arns Commission

Photo: Folhapress