Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: After Bolsonaro, it is necessary to debunk the country’s institutions and ideas

A serious Attorney General can create serious problems for a delinquent President of the Republic. A venal attorney for the republic can sell his soul to a president who seduces him with the promise of a seat on the Supreme.

Any president can offer this mamata. There is also the opportunity for judicial trickery through the manipulation of justice ministers, directors of the Federal Police or higher court ministers.

Jair Bolsonaro once again exposed these shames. Perhaps it is the case that the law prohibits the heads of the prosecution, police or justice from being appointed to a higher court by the same president who appointed them to those positions.

It is just an example of what must be thought of once the country elects a president who inhabits the universe of minimal reason and decency. With Bolsonaro, the terminal threat to law, democracy and life through tyrannical intervention in state bodies must have been clear. Changes must be made that strengthen the immunity of institutions and at the same time promote a de-bozification of the country.

A serious problem is what to do with the military party, with the thousands of members of the Armed Forces who enjoy the rich mouth, who preach torture, dictatorship and coup, not to mention the politicization of commandos.

If a professional bureaucracy dislodges the military from their mouths, there is a risk of revenge. Even if that is not the case, it became evident that armed people once again threatened politics and the functioning of institutions, including the Supreme Court. A new explicit and implicit statute for the Armed Forces and police is lacking.

It is necessary to create means so that the government official is quickly and embarrassingly called to speak or to the court in case of lying and manipulation or concealment of data. The lie is the essential condition of Bolsonaro.

Tried to hide epidemic numbers. Until today, it tries to manipulate information about deforestation and burning. It cast doubt on IBGE data (which may well be criticized in specialized debate, which is difficult, as it seeks to follow the best technical standards). The Access to Information Law turned into yet another instrument that the State has to act in secret from the public. There is a law to qualify the lie against order, peace and public health. But the risk that the chief liar will go to the court scaffold needs to be increased.

No president will feel threatened if he can also buy a president of the Chamber of Deputies, with his imperial capacity to decide on impeachment processes. A broad collegiate, with relevant opposition participation, must have this power. It’s not about facilitating depositions, but officials should be afraid of sticking.

Of course, only localized institutional reforms will not take care of the degradation. The political system that is self-centered, closed, impervious to democratic participation, dedicated to mere self-preservation, a bunch of business parties created by perverse incentives, needs to be sorted out.

It’s still not much. The country has been in revolt for at least eight years. Sometimes they are punctual (June 2013). Others are “long-lasting”: the mass sprawled on the outskirts for decades revolted in part through politicized religion, for example. The indifference of political parties and the lack of profound social results from politics during the period of free elections discredited democracy and made authoritarian solutions attractive.

Debozification is more than debolsonarization: it also has to deal with the swamp in which it sprouted.