Será que finalmente, depois de tanto tempo vivendo num clima de "Alemanha 1933", estaríamos chegando no momento Ceausescu? Quero referir-me não exatamente à prisão e fuzilamento do ditador romeno, mas daquele momento em que a massa, antes amorfa ou indiferente, finalmente se revolta contra o genocida no poder.
Mas, precisávamos esperar mais de 520 mil mortos para isto? Eu estava esperando que já com 50 mil, ou no máximo 100 mil, já estaríamos nos revoltando e chutado o psicopata para fora do poder.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brazilians take to streets to demand removal of Jair Bolsonaro
The Guardian
Tom Phillips
03/07/2021, 19:50
Huge crowds of protesters have returned to the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities to demand the removal of a president they blame for more than half a million coronavirus deaths.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators hit the streets of Rio de Janeiro on Saturday morning as calls for Jair Bolsonaro’s impeachment intensified after allegations that members of his government had sought to illegally profit from the purchase of Covid vaccines.
“The people have awoken,” said Benedita da Silva, a 79-year-old congresswoman and veteran of the Brazilian left, as she joined the rally.
“I’m here because we absolutely have to get this monster out of power and reclaim Brazil,” said Magda Souza, a 64-year-old dissenter, as she marched through downtown Rio with her husband, José Baptisa. “We’re surrounded by barbarism,” Souza added as a police helicopter circled over the throng.
Souza wore a bright red T-shirt calling for the return of Bolsonaro’s leftwing antagonist, the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who recently stormed back on the political scene after his political rights were restored and is expected to run for the presidency next year. But many at the demonstration said they were not members of Brazil’s left and simply wanted rid of a far-right leader they accused of condemning thousands of their fellow citizens to death with his chaotic – and some now suspect corrupt – response to coronavirus.
On Friday, a supreme court judge ordered an investigation into whether Bolsonaro had failed to act after being alerted to suspicions of high-level corruption involving the procurement of millions of Covid vaccines from the Indian pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech. According to the official count, more than 522,000 Brazilians have lost their lives to coronavirus, second only to the US , with the South American country’s epidemic still far from being controlled.
Patricia Ribeiro, a 47-year-old registrar, said she had never attended a street protest before this, but had come to pay tribute to her brother, Pedro Ribeiro, who died in March after catching Covid and spending eight days on a ventilator.
“I blame the government for my brother’s death,” she said. “They behave as if our lives are worth nothing, as if human life was worthless.”
“He had so many dreams,” Ribeiro added of her brother, a singlefather who was about to graduate from university and leaves two orphaned children.
Daniel Melo, an 18-year-old student, came to remember his 86-year-old grandmother, Conceição, who also died of Covid. “She went to hospital and never came home,” Melo said, adding that he blamed Brazil’s “genocidal” president for failing to alert citizens to the dangers of coronavirus – a disease Bolsonaro has dismissed as a “little flu”.
“He wanted to kill everyone,” Melo claimed.
Many protesters waved Brazil’s yellow and green flag – a symbol used by Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right movement – in an effort to reclaim the flag from his followers.
“It isn’t their flag, it’s the Brazilian flag and we are Brazilians. Brazil belongs to all of us. We are the children of this nation. We are patriots, just as they claim to be,” said André da Silva, a leftist activist from a social group called Movimento Favela Ação who was among those carrying the Brazilian flag.
Paulo Betti, a celebrated actor and director, was another who came clutching Brazil’s green and yellow jack. “We’re here to honour the dead and to declare: ‘We are alive!’” the 68-year-old said, attacking Bolsonaro’s assault on the Brazilian Amazon.
“We cannot allow this destruction to continue,” said Sílvia Buarque, awell-known actor who said Bolsonaro needed to be immediately removed from office. “This pandemic has convinced me that we cannot wait to vote him out [in 2022].”
Anti-Bolsonaro protests were reported to have taken place in many of Brazil’s most important cities, including Belém, Recife, São Paulo and Brasília, as well as European cities including London, Barcelona and Dublin.
“The primary objective is to bring down Bolsonaro,” said Maurício Machado, a 43-year-old waiter who came to the Rio rally wearing a face shield inscribed with the words: “Genocidal Bolsonaro. Biological threat.”
“Bolsonaro is a biological threat, a political threat, a psychological threat and a extraterrestrial threat,” Machado said.
Guilherme Boulos, a prominent leftist and one of the organisers of the São Paulo rally, said the Covid corruption allegations had added to already profound public anger aganist Bolsonaro. “For the first time I think impeachment is a real possibility,” Boulos said, celebrating the fact that rightwingers were now joining the protest movement.
Political observers are skeptical about Bolsonaro’s imminent demise, pointing to the opposition of Arthur Lira, the president of Brazil’s lower house, to impeachment. Lira would need to approve the start of impeachment proceedings and at Saturday’s demos, the politician – who is a member of the powerful political bloc propping up Bolsonaro – found himself in protesters’ crosshairs. “Arthur Lira: an accomplice to genocide,” read one banner.
Another poster said simply: “Vaccines not bribes”.
Protestos contra o governo e a favor da vacina são noticiados por mídia estrangeira
G1
04/07/2021, 11:20
Os protestos de sábado (3) contra o governo de Jair Bolsonaro (sem partido) e a favor da vacina no Brasil foram noticiados em grandes veículos da imprensa estrangeira.
O "New York Times" publicou uma reportagem na qual diz que os brasileiros já estavam bravos pela lentidão do governo para adquirir vacinas e, agora, também estão furiosos por causa de escândalos de corrupção envolvendo negociações para contratos.
De acordo com o jornal norte-americano, as mudanças de roteiro das histórias de uma possível propina "são dignas de um reality show de TV".
Também foi citada a abertura de uma investigação pela Procuradoria-Geral da República para investigar a negociação de vacinas da Covaxin.
"No sábado, era palpável a raiva por causa das últimas revelações quando dezenas de milhares de pessoas foram às ruas para uma terceira rodada de manifestações contra o governo Bolsonaro".
O jornal inglês "The Guardian" também publicou um texto sobre as manifestações: "Grandes multidões de manifestantes voltaram às ruas das maiores cidades do Brasil para exigir a remoção do presidente que eles culpam por mais de meio milhão de morte".
Na BBC, se lê que dezenas de milhares de pessoas foram protestar contra Bolsonaro e a forma como ele administra a pandemia de Covid-19.
A rede também afirma que os protestos foram antecipados pelas denúncias recentes de corrupção nas negociações de vacinas.
O texto da agência Associated Press abre com a informação de que os protestos acontecem um dia depois de o Supremo Tribunal Federal ter autorizado uma investigação sobre o potencial caso de corrupção envolvendo a negociação de vacinas.
"Os manifestantes se juntaram aos milhares em mais de 40 cidades para exigir o impeachment de Bolsonaro e mais acesso às vacinas contra a Covid-19".
Brazil erupts in protests after court authorises Bolsonaro probe
Thousands of protesters across Brazil demonstrated against President Jair Bolsonaro this weekend as pressure mounted on the populist leader over allegations of potential corruption in the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines.
The rallies, which took place in at least 13 state capital cities, came a day after the Supreme Court authorised a criminal investigation into whether Bolsonaro engaged in the crime of “prevarication”, the dereliction of public duty for reasons of personal interest.
Bolsonaro has been accused of not acting on suspicions of wrongdoing after a whistleblower at the Ministry of Health claimed to have personally raised with him concerns about a R$1.6bn ($320m) deal to acquire 20m jabs of Covaxin produced by Bharat Biotech from India.
The scandal came to the fore after Luis Ricardo Miranda, chief of the ministry’s import division, highlighted alleged irregularities in invoices. The civil servant said he was pressured by a senior government official to push through the orders.
Miranda and his brother, a federal deputy, last month testified to a congressional inquiry that they had brought the issue to the Brazilian president, and that he gave assurances he would raise the matter with police. Federal police, however, say they did not receive any request to investigate.
Ministers have denied irregularities in the Covaxin agreement, which involved an intermediary company, while insisting that no money has been paid since no batches of the shots have yet been delivered. Bolsonaro and Bharat have previously denied wrongdoing in the supply of Covaxin. The health ministry temporarily suspended the contract after a recommendation from the federal comptroller.
With more than half a million lives lost to Covid-19 in Latin America’s most populous nation, the controversy has become a political headache for the Bolsonaro administration. The return of protesters to the streets of Brazil’s big cities raises the pressure on the president ahead of his re-election campaign next year.
Many claim the populist leader, who has railed against lockdowns and disparaged the use of masks, has been negligent in his handling of the pandemic.
“The ‘silent’ majority that opposes the president has started to hit the streets, led by the left but with growing support from centrist voters. The wheels are forcefully turning against the president,” said Mario Marconini, managing director of Teneo in Brazil.
Political analysts, however, are sceptical about the potential impact of the probe. Any criminal charges brought against the president would need to garner the backing of two-thirds of the lower house of Congress in order to proceed, an unlikely outcome given Bolsonaro’s web of alliances in parliament.
“If the attorney-general, nominated by Bolsonaro, decides there is enough evidence to indict him, the Supreme Court will need approval from the lower house to move forward and house speaker Arthur Lira can just do nothing,” said Eduardo Mello, a political scientist at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, highlighting Bolsonaro’s alliance with Lira.
A grouping of left- and rightwing deputies last week filed a new request for impeachment but for now the prospects appear slim. The leader of the lower house of Congress, Lira, who must approve any request, has until now given no indication he is minded to start proceedings.
“Bolsonaro still maintain 25 per cent approval in the polls and his allies in parliament are in a comfortable position,” said Lucas de Aragão, a partner at consultancy Arko Advice. “This scandal is damaging but not necessarily fatal.”
https://www.google.com.br/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/313c9a82-6599-4910-97ce-d2dab8e0df23
