BY OLIVER STUENKEL | MARCH 19, 2020
Huge pot-banging protests show how vulnerable Brazil’s president is amid the coronavirus outbreak. Coming days will be critical.
https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/bolsonaro-faces-his-biggest-crisis-and-struggling
SÃO PAULO – As the coronavirus mercilessly spread in recent weeks, Jair Bolsonaro frequently sought to minimize the risk, claiming the pandemic was a “fantasy” and “hysteria” promoted by the media to weaken the government. Despite warnings by public health experts, Bolsonaro called on his supporters to join pro-government protests in cities across the country. On the day of the march, Bolsonaro personally greeted hundreds of supporters in front of the presidential palace while still waiting for his own virus test results (they eventually came back negative), after more than a dozen of his advisors had tested positive following a trip to the United States.
To his critics, Bolsonaro’s decision not only put the lives of many people at risk, it also marked a turning point in his presidency. “The political winds are changing”, Pedro Doria, a newspaper columnist and radio commentator wrote on Twitter. Joel Pinheiro, a columnist at Folha de São Paulo, wrote Monday that “a key has turned.” A video of a Haitian migrant confronting Bolsonaro saying “You are no longer the president,” went viral on social media.
For two consecutive nights on Tuesday and Wednesday, huge pot-banging protests against Bolsonaro could be heard in upper and upper-middle class areas of several Brazilian cities that voted overwhelmingly for the president in the 2018 election. Many…
