Pandemic denialism begins to take its toll on Bolsonaro

The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, will be investigated in the Supreme Court for linking the anti-void vaccine to AIDS, another example of his denial in the face of the pandemic, which is already beginning to take its toll on the justice system and from which his new political party has distanced itself.

The far-right president was on the way to closing a week with several political triumphs that have been truncated at the last minute.

On Tuesday he “married” the right-wing Liberal Party (PL) and paved his way to run for reelection in 2022; on Wednesday the Senate approved its “terribly evangelical” candidate for the Supreme Court and on Thursday the same chamber backed his fiscal maneuvers to finance a new social program.

But on Friday night he received a new setback in Justice. The magistrate Alexandre de Moraes, one of the eleven judges of the Supreme Court, ordered the opening of an investigation against him for linking the vaccine against covid-19 to AIDS.

Five investigations in the Supreme

And it is not the first. There are already five investigations that Bolsonaro faces in the high court since he assumed power, in January 2019, for various issues, ranging from alleged political interference in the Federal Police to possible irregularities in the negotiations to buy vaccines, passing through the spread of hoaxes.

The new process is the result of a statement he gave on October 21 in his weekly broadcast on social networks, when he suggested that those who are vaccinated are at greater risk of developing AIDS, which has been denied by the World Health Organization (WHO ).

This led to YouTube suspending his account for seven days and served the Senate commission, which was then investigating the government’s management of the pandemic, to add to its accusations against Bolsonaro.

In fact, De Moraes’ decision responds to an appeal presented by senators of that commission, who in their final report formulated nine charges against the president, including “crimes against humanity”, for his erratic handling of the covid, which already it has killed more than 615,000 Brazilians.

On October 27, the commission also sent the document, which has 1,180 pages, to the attorney general, Augusto Aras, who has aligned himself many times with the Government and who in the last two years has put dozens of complaints filed against Bolsonaro in a drawer.

Since then, Aras has opened, according to the newspaper ‘O Globo’, only “six preliminary investigations” based on the report, a very lukewarm procedure with little experience in the judicial sphere.

Bolsonaro’s new party marks distances

Bolsonaro’s denial of the coronavirus is also beginning to clash with some leaders of his new party, the PL.

The head of the PL in the Senate, Carlos Portinho, asked for the approval of a project of his authorship, already endorsed by the Upper House, to implement the “health passport” in national territory, a measure opposed by Bolsonaro, who considers that “Freedom is above all.”

“The Chamber of Deputies needs to approve it as soon as possible, given the increase in cases (in the world), the new strain (by omicron) and, above all, due to the need to control our borders,” said Portinho.

As if that were not enough, the PL shared the appeal of its senator on its official Twitter profile, as well as on its website.

The Bolsonaro Government is still reluctant today to demand proof of vaccination for the entry of foreigners that already works in many countries, despite the recommendations of the National Health Surveillance Agency, the Public Defender’s Office, the Court of Accounts and now the the president’s own party.

Although the pressure grows as the first cases of the omicron variant appear in the country, which has already reported six with this new strain.

All this at a time when Bolsonaro is dealing with the worst popularity ratings of his term and all electoral polls give former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as a clear favorite for the October 2022 elections.

Apparently unconcerned, the far-right leader dedicated this Saturday morning to taking a motorcycle ride and visiting a market in Brasilia, where he took photos with some of his followers, according to a video released by the Bolsonarista channel ‘Foco do Brasil’.