As Bolsonaro arrest looms, allies set stage for coup after possible Trump victory
After a year in which Brazil’s GDP grew at a rate over 3 times higher than projected by the IMF, unemployment hit an 11-year low, and the number of Brazilians living with severe food insecurity dropped from 33 million to 20 million, President Lula has angered international business elites, the military, and evangelical Christians. This has led to a month of negative reporting in Brazil’s mainstream and social media reminiscent of the smear campaigns in the lead up to the 2016 coup against Dilma Rousseff.
On Monday, March 18, Lula summoned his cabinet ministers for a meeting on communications strategies, after polls showed his approval rating has slipped from 54 to 51%. While this type of downward oscillation wouldn’t normally be cause for worry, taken together with the media smear campaign it rang alarm bells. While the Lula government may still be too popular for it’s enemies to overthrow (especially due to his 68% approval rating in the Northeast), months of continued attacks could weaken it enough to take action if Donald Trump, whose far-right backers are close to the Bolsonaro family, is elected this Fall. Furthermore, lowering popularity ratings could force Lula to make more compromises with the ruralistas – the multi-party caucus comprising over 60% of Congress that represents Brazil’s traditional agribusiness families (read: descendants of big slave-owners), and their multinational agro allies like Cargill.
On February 8, as part of investigations into the failed, Jan. 8, 2023 coup attempt, Brazil’s Federal Police raided the homes of some of the most powerful deep state actors in Brazil, including retired General Augusto Heleno, who has long been believed to be untouchable. Known internationally as the military commander of the UN’s Minustah occupation of Haiti during the Cite Soleil massacre, Heleno is remembered in Brazil for his role as aide-de-camp to General Sylvio Frota during the military dicatatorship. Commander of the Ministry of the Army and leader of an hardline internal faction called the tigradas, General Frota repeatedly ignored President Geisel’s orders to phase out torture and executions of political prisoners. He was fired in October, 1977 after trying to to trigger an auto-coup that would have made him the new dictator.
As Jair Bolsonaro’s Institutional Security Chief, General Heleno oversaw 17 governmental departments including ABIN, the national intelligence bureau. (more...)
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