The Brazilian Senate investigation commission that analyzes how the government of Jair Bolsonaro has been managing the pandemic has heard the most anticipated testimony this Wednesday. General Eduardo Pazuello, the longest-serving of the four Health Ministers who have succeeded each other since the start of the health crisis, has been repeatedly questioned about what guidance the president gave him: “At no time did the President of the Republic give me orders to do anything other than what (I) was doing, ”the military man replied. Previous sessions have shown to what extent the Executive embarked on producing and promoting ineffective drugs or how it ignored vaccine offers for months.
The Senate has spent two weeks scrutinizing, in live televised face-to-face sessions, the actions and omissions of the federal government to face an epidemic whose world epicenter was Brazil for weeks.
The investigation commission has become the most valuable instrument of the opposition to accelerate the wear and tear of the president, coinciding with the political resurrection of Lula da Silva and a vaccination that still does not have the necessary pace to stop the advance of the coronavirus in its tracks.
Although dozens of
impeachment
petitions have been filed
against the president, none have even been processed and he has already secured enough parliamentary support to neutralize them.
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Eduardo Pazuello, the minister-general of the pandemic that does not oppose Bolsonaro
The eloquent silence of the former Brazilian Minister of Health
Bolsonaro stands out among the most denialist leaders because his position has changed little despite the accumulation of victims.
Still a few days ago he labeled those who stay at home as idiots, he only appears occasionally with a mask and continues to systematically blame the governors and mayors.
And that the situation is still serious.
Even with the pandemic stabilized after the hospital collapse, the average daily death exceeds 1,900 in this country of 210 million inhabitants.
In total, there are 440,000 deaths and almost 16 million infected.
"If he could go back, he would have tried to see the president more," the former minister, who is also being investigated by the police for the death of patients in hospitals in Manaus when the oxygen ran out, told the Senate. His appearance, which was scheduled for the first week and managed to delay it to better prepare thanks to a trick, is expected to be long. "Mission accomplished", he replied when asked about the reasons for his dismissal.
The general, who came to the Health Ministry as
number two
with the credentials of an expert in logistics, ended up becoming a minister when his predecessor resigned a month after arriving. He was a doctor who stood up to Bolsonaro's determination to promote useless cures. Although he is now trying to exonerate the president, Pazuello explained months ago how the relationship between the two worked. "It's simple, one commands and the other obeys." This Wednesday he defined that phrase as "military jargon." That is why his appearance is a sensitive matter for the Head of State but also for the Armed Forces, which have tried to keep their distance from the failed administration of General Pazuello. Although after his dismissal he has returned to the Army, he has appeared before the Senate in a suit, with a tie in the national colors.
The day before another dismissed former minister, Ernesto Araújo, of Foreign Affairs, appeared before the investigation commission.
The trumpista managed to unnerve their lordships and be accused of "being untrue" by denying his verbal attacks on China, the main supplier of vaccines to Brazil.
Araújo endorsed the responsibility for the strategy against the covid to General Pazuello, who fears becoming a scapegoat.
The rapid advance of the pandemic had already begun to erode Bolsonaro's support in the polls when, in March, the Supreme Court overturned Lula's convictions and, incidentally, placed him in the race for the 2022 presidential elections. With a speech Measured, the leader of the Workers' Party has managed to capitalize on an incipient anti-colonialism and cool the anti-Peteticism that was key in the victory of the far-rightist.
Electoral polls are beginning to reflect a change of mood in an electorate that embraced Bolsonaro as a synonym for political change.
A poll even put Lula 18 points ahead of the president in the first round a week ago to the surprise of many observers.
There are 16 months left for an election that right now is foreseen as a Bolsonaro-Lula duel because not a single of the initiatives to enlighten a centrist candidate has come to fruition.
While the president multiplies the trips to inaugurate works in different corners of the country, Lula has begun to look for allies.
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