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Editor's Note: Pedro Brieger is an Argentine journalist and sociologist, author of several books on international issues and collaborator in publications from different countries. He is a professor of sociology at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). Director of NODAL, a portal dedicated exclusively to news from Latin America and the Caribbean. He is currently a TV columnist for the Argentine channel C5N, on the program "En la Frontera" on PúblicoTV (Spain) and on radio programs for the Argentine radio stations Radio10, La Red, La Tribu and LT9-Santa Fe. Throughout his career, Brieger won important awards for his informative work on Argentine radio and television. The opinions expressed in this comment are the author's own. More opinion pieces at CNNe.com/opinion
(CNN Spanish) - The crisis that Brazil is suffering from the coronavirus comes just a year and weeks after Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in as president on January 1, 2019. In his first message to Congress, he promised to “rescue Brazil” from the ideologies that had dominated the country. And when he analyzed the health situation in that speech - today a central issue - he assured that the "people had been abandoned."
During the 2018 electoral campaign, Bolsonaro appeared as a novelty that came out of the fringes and could capitalize on dissatisfaction with the political establishment and the Workers' Party in government since January 1, 2003.
Beyond the mistrust of him by the vast majority of historical national political parties and the business world, he managed to get them to support him because he had become the only figure who could defeat the Workers Party and "save" the country of its continuity at the head of the State.
It is not by chance that the president repeatedly appeals to his second name, "Messiah" (adopted by him in a ceremony on the Jordan River), to present himself as "the savior", although he recently acknowledged that he did not perform miracles.
Among his "guarantors" was Judge Sergio Moro, who had successfully imprisoned Lula da Silva and whom Bolsonaro appointed Minister of Justice. Today Moro is no longer with him and both are engaged in a tough political and legal fight, perhaps facing the 2022 presidential elections. Moro was not the only one who abandoned him. This year, several mayors, governors, legislators and even his Health Minister, Luiz Mandetta, left, who openly expressed their disagreement with the president's strategy to combat the coronavirus.
LEE: Brazilian Minister of Health resigns amid dispute over coronavirus with Bolsonaro
What happened? Could it be that the appearance of the coronavirus exposed the intellectual and emotional fragility of Bolsonaro to govern? In other words: it is not the same to get out of marginality and be a good candidate to win elections, than to face a health crisis that is also social and political.
When Bolsonaro says "whoever does not want to work, stay at home," he leaves people to their own devices as if he were a simple observer of reality and not a president whose responsibility is to command the country.
READ: Bolsonaro criticizes quarantines, while in Brazil deaths from covid-19 increase
The Governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, who heads the most important and populated city in Brazil and who came to office accompanying Bolsonaro, did not hesitate to say that Brazil has a president who is not fully equipped with the mental powers to lead. the country.
And with the coronavirus expanding, it is worth asking: is Brazil an explosive cocktail?
coronaviruscovid-19Jair Bolsonaro