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LATIN AMERICA | 27-04-2021 12:40

Brazil Senate opens Bolsonaro Covid probe

Brazil's Senate opened an inquiry Tuesday into the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, after far-right president Jair Bolsonaro defied almost all expert advice on handling the crisis.

Brazil's Senate opened an inquiry Tuesday into the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a politically explosive move that could damage President Jair Bolsonaro as he gears up to seek re-election next year.

Bolsonaro has brazenly defied expert advice on the pandemic at virtually every turn, attacking lockdowns, shunning masks, resisting vaccines and touting drugs such as hydroxychloroquine that researchers say are ineffective against the virus.

That stance has left the far-right leader politically vulnerable as Brazil's death toll has surged to nearly 400,000 — second only to that of the United States — and the government has struggled to source enough vaccines for the country's 212 million people.

The parliamentary investigative commission will analyse whether federal or state officials committed criminal negligence or corruption, including in horrific scenes such as oxygen shortages that left Covid-19 patients to suffocate earlier this year in the hard-hit city of Manaus, in the Amazon rainforest.

"I think this [investigation] is going to create a lot of problems for the president," said political analyst Andre Rehbein Sathler, of news site Congresso em Foco's research unit.

"They don't even really need an investigation. The government's actions on the pandemic are there for all to see," he told AFP.

"Not just omissions, but actions. The administration went to the Supreme Court to try to block states' social distancing measures, it refused to purchase vaccines, it minimised the pandemic."

The question is just how big the damages could be from the probe, which was ordered by the Supreme Court. Such commissions have sometimes proved devastating, setting up the impeachment of president Fernando Collor in the 1990s. But depending on how the political winds blow, they can also fizzle.

Bolsonaro struck an alliance earlier this year with a powerful coalition of centre-right parties known as the "Centrão" — likely hoping, among other things, to protect himself from just this kind of fallout.

But the alliance shows signs of fraying. And with his disapproval rating rising to well above 50 percent, Bolsonaro looks vulnerable heading for the October 2022 elections.

The commission has a 90-day renewable mandate.

 

—TIMES/AFP

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