Rarely two simple words will have caused such a storm: the “ So what? Released by President Jair Bolsonaro to a journalist who questioned him about the fact that more than 5,000 Brazilians had died from the coronavirus has not passed. " So what?" I am sorry. What do you want me to do? I’m Messias (Messiah, his middle name, editor's note) but I’m not doing a miracle, ”replied the president on Tuesday evening.
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This casual response made waves throughout the week, triggering until Friday cascades of reactions from governors, politicians, health professionals or editorialists, outraged at the lack of presidential empathy.
Jair Bolsonaro is not just a controversy. But if this remark has caused such a fright, it is because his country is facing an uncontrollable wave of the pandemic, a few weeks from a peak which is likely to exceed the most catastrophic forecasts. With officially 85,380 cases of contamination, but 15 or 20 times more according to scientists, and 5,901 dead, this country-continent sees looming an American or Italian scenario.
Judging this " So what?" " Absolutely unacceptable ", Wilson Witzel, the governor of a state of Rio de Janeiro on the brink of health implosion, castigated a president " who ironically on the dead " rather than " being a leader in such a moment " " Get to work, " he said in a tweet on Wednesday, the day the pro-arms president trained in a shooting center, far from the anxieties of the 210 million Brazilians.
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"Bulle de Brasilia"
Another governor on the front line in the fight against the coronavirus, Joao Doria, that of the State of Sao Paulo, the most affected with 2,375 dead, replied, furious: " Get out of your bubble in Brasilia ", and advised Bolsonaro d 'Go and visit the hospitals of " this country which mourns the dead and the sick ".
The head of state, unlike many of his foreign counterparts facing the same scourge, was not seen in hospitals, nor expressed his solidarity with the victims, the bereaved families or the already exhausted medical personnel and in desperate need of respirators or beds.
The president of the medical unions of Sao Paulo, Eder Gatti, soberly wished on TV Globo " a more serious posture on the part of a president of the republic ". Bolsonaro " shows very little sensitivity to the tragedies of families directly affected by the pandemic, " said Lucio Renno of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Brasilia, AFP. " His style is the iron fist, it is to be hard, much more than to be united and empathetic ", says Lucio Renno. A style that irresistibly recalls that of his model, American President Donald Trump.
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This kind of reaction " is shocking for a significant part of the population " and " reinforces the idea, for a large part of the Brazilian elites and population that it is not able to govern ". Miriam Leitao, editorialist for the newspaper O Globo, has already decided: “ With his 'E dai?' Bolsonaro has renounced the presidency, "she wrote on Thursday. " He who shows such contempt for his own people no longer exercises the presidency ".
"Sanctioned by History"
To defend himself, according to a method proven at the Palace of the Planalto, Bolsonaro went on the attack against these governors and mayors to whom the Supreme Court gave autonomy of decision in the fight against coronavirus. " Ask Joao Doria or (Bruno) Covas (mayor of Sao Paulo) why people continue to die after they have taken such restrictive measures ," said the president. " They're the ones who have to answer, you're not going to stick this on my back ."
However, on Friday the Brazilian press stressed " the responsibility " in the surge in the curves of Jair Bolsonaro's coronavirus, which, to preserve employment, encouraged the Brazilians to come out, and its most fervent supporters to march in the streets against the confinement. The “ So what? "De Bolsonaro" shows how little he cares about the situation, "said André Pereira César, political scientist, in a letter. " If the president does not in fact assume leadership in the fight against the new coronavirus, he will end up being heavily sanctioned - by history and by the electorate ."