With the fall of vaccine registration falsification, Jair Bolsonaro’s scandals begin to run like scandals in less armored governments. Now it remains to be seen who will respond.
In other governments things started with a denunciation, by the press or by the authorities. The indictment generated political consequences such as CPIs, the overthrow of ministers, investigations, awardwinning indictments, mobilizations of public opinion, and even impeachment motions.
Jair’s gang rose to power by stepping on the ruins of the political system destroyed by Lava Jato. They learned their lesson: the traditional parties had tolerated too much democracy, too much freedom of the press, too much investigation, too much institutional autonomy, too much transparency.
Bolsonaristas were determined not to repeat the mistake: they shielded themselves with the military, waged war against the press and the STF, armed the state ministry and the federal police, bought Congress with the secret budget. His favorite suspicious relationships were with Arab countries, which are as transparent as North Korea. All this with a touch of genius: the support of Sergio Moro, Lava Jato’s public face.
With this protection, Bolsonaristas managed to prevent complaints from becoming CPIs, PGR lawsuits and impeachment proceedings. So the pastors’ gold at the MEC, the vaccine purchase fraud, the secret budget itself soon disappeared from the news and disappeared into the opinion columns, including this one.
If the same thing had happened to the monthly pocket money, it would have been just a mail fraud story. If the same thing had happened in Lava Jato, it would have just been a gas station money laundering story.
Now Jair is no longer president, the January 8 coup failed and many people have brushed past Bolsonarists to clean up proindependence gestures.
The lawsuit for forging vaccination records does not look like dying in the cradle. On the contrary: it has already begun to unfold. Evidence collected by police includes an audio from former Major Ailton Barros to Bolsonaro’s aide Mauro Cid in which he proposed a coup in December 2022.
If things go back to the way they were before, we’re going to see a series of arrests, cell phone confiscations, new evidence, new allegations, until someone makes a plea. This is the end for Bolsonaro.
For now, the two main candidates for whistleblowers are Mauro Cid and former Attorney General Anderson Torres. Both must face a long, hard sentence if they continue to protect Bolsonaro.
And the question begins to arise: Why would they make such a sacrifice? The shot went wrong. Jair will not be eligible. Will the politicians who want to succeed him, like Tarcísio de Freitas and Romeu Zema, use political capital to get Anderson Torres or Mauro Cid out of prison? Will the military get involved?
It’s always possible because there are people out there who could get caught up in the history of the coup. But potential whistleblowers don’t seem confident.
Bolsonaristas committed crimes in a crude way, in a poorly disguised way, because they bet on the coup. They said there would be no more rule of law to investigate them. Last week it became clear that there was more left than they expected. We’ll see if it’s enough.