It’s not often that the president of a country is credibly accused of homicide. It’s even less often that a sitting president of a country is credibly accused of homicide. And it’s even less often than that that a sitting president of one of largest countries in the world is credibly accused of homicide.
Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world in both area and population. Its incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro, is an exception to the above-mentioned rules. After an extended and painstaking investigation, a Brazilian congressional panel just released its report on how the government handled the Covid-19 crisis. It was damning. It charged that Bolsonaro “actively helped to spread the virus.” That his stewardship of the country throughout the pandemic was, is, “catastrophic.” And that had his leadership in the last year and a half been modestly better than it was, “400,000 Brazilians would still be alive.”* The panel recommended the president be charged with nine crimes, ranging from irregular use of public funds all the way to crimes against humanity.
Which inevitably raises the question of “now what?” Alas, the likely answer is now nothing. Like so many other bad, even atrocious leaders the world over, Bolsonaro is likely largely, even entirely to escape the long arm of the law. In this case the president of Brazil is protected by friends in high places, including the prosecutor general.
However, Brazil is a functioning if flawed democracy. So even if Bolsonaro escapes a legal accounting, he is likely to pay a political price. Recent polls confirm his approval ratings have badly sagged. In one such poll taken a month ago, 59% of Brazilians said they would never again vote for him under any circumstance.
Still, it’s an outrage when leaders who are criminals are not held legally responsible. In this case, Bolsonaro continues even now to undermine commonsense measures against Covid-19 such as masking, social distancing, and mass testing. Moreover, he still promotes ineffective drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, and insists, at least publicly, that he will never get vaccinated.
It’s not always a sadness that we remain so ill-equipped to take on bad leaders. Sometimes it’s a tragedy.
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The quotes are from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/opinion/bolsonaro-brazil-report.html