Via The Guardian: Lula: Bolsonaro leading Brazil 'to slaughterhouse' over Covid-19. Excerpt:
Jair Bolsonaro is leading Brazilians “to the slaughterhouse” with his irresponsible handling of coronavirus, the country’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said.
In an impassioned interview with the Guardian – which came as Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll hit 1,924 – Lula said that by undermining social distancing and defenestrating his own health minister, Brazil’s “troglodyte” leader risked repeating the devastating scenes playing out in Ecuador where families have had to dump their loved ones’ corpses in the streets.
“Unfortunately I fear Brazil is going to suffer a great deal because of Bolsonaro’s recklessness … I fear that if this grows Brazil could see some cases like those horrific, monstrous images we saw in Guayaquil,” said the 74-year-old leftist.
“We can’t just want to topple a president because we don’t like him,” Lula admitted. “[But] if Bolsonaro continues to commit crimes of responsibility … [and] trying to lead society to the slaughterhouse – which is what he is doing – I think the institutions will need to find a way of sorting Bolsonaro out. And that will mean you’ll need to have an impeachment.”
Bolsonaro – a proudly homophobic former army captain already despised by progressive Brazilians for his hostility to the environment, indigenous rights and the arts, as well as his alleged links to Rio’s mafia – has alienated millions more with his dismissive stance towards the coronavirus, which he belittles as media “hysteria” and a “bit of a cold”.
Since the World Health Organization declared the pandemic on 11 March, Brazil’s president has repeatedly thumbed his nose at social distancing, first by egging on and attending pro-Bolsonaro protests and then with a series of provocative visits to bakeries, supermarkets and pharmacies. During one unnecessary outing Bolsonaro declared: “No one will hinder my right to come and go.”
In March the rightwing populist even suggested Brazilians need not worry about Covid-19 since they could bathe in excrement “and nothing happens”.
Such moves put Bolsonaro at loggerheads with his own health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, a doctor-turned-politician who was fired on Thursday after challenging the president’s behaviour.
Meanwhile Bolsonaro’s politician son, Eduardo, has taken the wrecking ball to ties with Brazil’s most important trade partner, China, by accusing its Communist party leaders of being to blame for the coronavirus crisis.
Bolsonaro’s actions have sparked nightly pot-banging protests in cities up and down the country and drawn scorn from across the political spectrum.
“Coronavirus must be laughing its head off,” Eliane Cantanhêde, a columnist for the conservative Estado de São Paulo newspaper, wrote of Bolsonaro’s antics this week.
The rightwing governor of Brazil’s most populous state, São Paulo, has declared the country at war with both the coronavirus and the “Bolsonaro-virus”.
