Top Brazil newspaper demands President Bolsonaro’s removal
One of Brazil’s leading conservative newspapers has demanded the removal of the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, as public outrage over his coronavirus (Covid-19) response and corruption dragged the right-wing populist’s ratings to their lowest ever level.
“Jair Bolsonaro is no longer in a position to remain in the presidency,” O Estado de S Paulo (The State of Sao Paulo, or Estadao) declared yesterday as polls showed that for the first time a majority of citizens backed impeachment and considered their leader incapable of governing.
Bolsonaro, a former paratrooper and an admirer of Donald Trump, took office in January 2019, using social media to portray himself as a corruption-busting anti-establishment maverick who had come to drain Brazil’s swamp.
Critics have long questioned that image, pointing to incessant accusations of low-level corruption and mafia ties that have dogged Bolsonaro’s family.
The anger appears to have spread across Brazil’s electorate in recent weeks, largely thanks to an unfolding scandal over allegedly corrupt Covid vaccine deals and Bolsonaro’s handling of the country’s Covid-19 outbreak, which has killed more than 530,000 people.
“This is Jair Bolsonaro’s worst moment. He’s melting and the idea people have of him is melting,” said Eliane Cantanhêde, a political columnist for O Estado de S Paulo, who said a congressional inquiry had laid bare the president’s “crass and preposterous” pandemic response. Another major newspaper, Folha de S
Paulo, said on Saturday that Bolsonaro, who has faced a wave of recent protests, was suffering “a full-scale image meltdown”.
The newspaper’s polling division, Datafolha, said 54% of Brazilians thought he should be impeached, up from 49% in
May, and 63% believed him incapable of governing, up from 58%.
Most voters considered their president “dishonest, insincere, incompetent, unprepared, indecisive, authoritarian and dim”, Folha said.
Perhaps most worrying for Bolsonaro was the finding that 59% of voters would not back him under any circumstances in next year’s election, when he hopes to secure a second four-year term. Guardian News and Media