Brazil: the Moorish "Judas" against Messias Bolsonaro
If in the United States none of the impeachment processes against their presidents have prospered -the last one, the one against Donald Trump-, in Brazil, in the southern hemisphere of the American continent, Fernando Collor de Mello (1992) and Dilma Rousseff (2016), both dismissed for corruption, did have to leave the head of state. The current president could be the third candidate to leave Planalto Palace if, like his predecessors, he succumbs to the process to which he wants to submit his resigned justice minister.
His mother imposed on Bolsonaro the names of Jair and Messias, perhaps foreseeing the future of a son destined to the highest designs. It is more than likely that Jair Messias Bolsonaro would not have become President of Brazil if he had not had the invaluable help of Sergio Moro, a relentless top judge, who cracked the Lava Jato (Lavacoches) case, the tangled web of corruption and favours that ended the ultra-left Labour Party's (PT) thirteen years in power and its leader, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, imprisoned and unable to stand again in an election whose polls anticipated a resounding victory.
Relations between Bolsonaro and the man who was his main recruit for his regenerationist government were tense from the beginning, as a result of the clash between a president who was president because of a series of carom shots, including the very painful one of an attack that still has important consequences, and Moro, who was self-imbued that his destiny was similar to that of the Italian Antonio Di Pietro. Di Pietro liquidated practically the entire old Italian political class with his famous Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) operation, and he intended to do more or less the same in Brazil, whose business giant Odebrecht has extended the slimy smear of its corruption to all of Latin America.
The straw that broke the camel's back between the two politicians was the president's attempt to remove Moro's confidant in the Federal Police, Mauricio Valeixo, in order to put in his place Commissioner Alexandre Ramagem, a close friend of two of his sons, who are being investigated precisely for alleged crimes of corruption: Flavio Bolsonaro, for having appropriated public funds in collusion with paramilitary groups in Rio de Janeiro, and Carlos Bolsonaro, for being one of the largest producers and disseminators of hoaxes, many of them openly immersed in the crime of slander.
As soon as Sergio Moro presented him with his resignation and warned him that he would testify before the Federal Police, the president accused him of "Judas" and of promoting a coup d'état against him. The first major skirmish in this war between the two ended with Moro's deposition before the federal authorities in Curitiba, in which he allegedly presented evidence of at least seven crimes committed by Bolsonaro, including those of malfeasance and obstruction of justice, in the short year and a half that he has been in power.
Bolsonaro's supporters immediately took to the streets, targeting the Supreme Court and Congress with their protests, and claiming that the Armed Forces carried out a de facto coup d'état in support of the president, a former army captain himself and a traditional defender from his seat as a deputy of the military's demands for salaries and better resources and budget. Bolsonaro himself went so far as to cheer the demonstrators, encouraging his former comrades-in-arms to "take the side of the people.
Bolsonaro has crossed a very dangerous line. His own Minister of Defense, Fernando Azevedo e Silva, who is one of the nine members of the military sitting on the Council of Ministers, issued a statement disavowing the pretensions of the coup plotters, and reaffirming that the Armed Forces are there to guarantee the independence of each of the three powers: legislative, executive and judicial. It is more than likely that Azevedo had his eight military ministerial colleagues, including the vice president, General Hamilton Mourao, which is equivalent to a very difficult fracture to stitch up.
Once the investigation into Bolsonaro is opened, it can only lead to his dismissal or acquittal, in which case the one who will be sitting in the dock will be former judge Sergio Moro for having presented false evidence against the president in such a case. This could then lead to all his previous work as a ruthless persecuting magistrate of Lula Da Silva and of so many politicians, businessmen and high ranking Brazilian officials being completely revised. Meanwhile, the military will have to show a lot of courage to maintain its neutrality and not be dragged down to lay the sword on the table.