An alliance with the center will not be able to contain the authoritarian instincts of President Jair Bolsonaro and will not lead the government to a more productive relationship with the legislature, said political scientist Fernando Limonghi, professor at the School of Economics at Getúlio. Vargas Foundation in São Paulo.

In his opinion, the agreement reached with the party bloc, which gives cards to Congress, has the sole purpose of protecting the president from the beginning of the impeachment process and ensuring that he survives until next year’s elections, when he intends to run for re-election. …

Author of studies of changes in the relationship between the executive and the legislature after the end of the military dictatorship (1964-1985) and the redemocratisation of the country, Limongi believes that these characteristics distinguish the alliance with the center of the party coalitions supported by Bolsonaro’s predecessors.

He is skeptical of the chances of success for institutional changes such as those considered by bloc leaders to introduce a new government regime in Brazil with the adoption of a semi-presidential system of government and another electoral system with new rules for the selection of federal deputies.

A researcher who is working on a book about the crisis that led to the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff (PT) in 2016 says the end of the instability the country has faced since then depends on long-term reforms that improve institutions and ensure that the rules of the democratic game are upheld. …

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Does Bolsonaro’s union with the center mean recognition of the rules of the political game and its limitations? No. This agreement was not made in the name of a political project. This is a completely defensive action designed to protect the president from the risk of impeachment. This is completely different from what Bolsonaro’s predecessors did, seeking a majority to manage and implement proposals.

What characterizes the Bolsonaro government is its complete political irresponsibility. He never accepts offers or uses his political weight to do something. When he submits the bill to Congress, he crosses his arms and acts as if others should solve the problem. It doesn’t get anywhere.

What we see now is just an adaptation. First-time scholarship holders are ousted from their posts, which they now occupy in the center. But the center has no offers either. The fiasco we have seen will continue and they will do as they please.

Missing an agenda? Bolsonaro has no other project than to destroy everything that has been done since the re-democratization of the country, let alone what needs to be done. This is a totally negative agenda, as it became clear during the pandemic and in many other areas, in the environment, education, social protection, etc.

We have had a great deal of continuity between the PSDB and PT governments in pursuing various government policies. Bolsonaro is against. Paulo Gedes is an inexhaustible source of economic confusion. This is a reckless government that is not responsible for anything that it says it wants to do.

It seems that the center intends to approve the tax reform in the Chamber. The center did not take responsibility for government projects because no one asked. The center may be everything we know, but in the PT governments it was required to pursue certain policies when it envisioned such a ministry as the Cities. There is nothing in the current government.

Could the alliance contain Bolsonaro’s authoritarian views? He is uncontrollable, but his irresponsibility is also a form of cowardice. He talks a lot, talks too much, but is always ready to step back the next day and deny what he said. I am not saying that he does not want a coup or that he is not undemocratic. He is, but he is also a coward.

So what’s the risk? He is supported by part of the army, the federal police, the military police, and part of the population. Many of his supporters have weapons, including the population. Bolsonaro is a danger. This works not only against democracy, but also against civilization, our ability to live peacefully and tolerantly. Everyone knew that. Or did someone really think they could tame him?

Does the center offer a guarantee against the temptations of a coup? The center should watch history. Bolsonaro is a traitor. In the past, he forced his son Carlos to run for councilor against his own mother. He left everyone who was with him in the beginning when he needed to. Nobody stops at the kitchen on the Plateau. It remains to be seen whether the center will stop or not.

The political activity of the military after the ascent of Bolsonara is surprising for negative reasons. This shows that the military did not learn from the experiences of military governments when they saw their inability to solve serious problems.

Under the dictatorship, the idea was that they are good administrators, know how to clean up the house and make the economy grow. Today, the military in government is associated with disaster, disorder, and incompetence.

Some of them are really Pocketnarista and think like a president. At least the most obvious part for public opinion. If there is another, more civilized, more organized wing, it loses the fight to public opinion. And this group will later have work to clean up the order left by others.

We have a problem there. Many of them do not understand how democracy works. They need to retrain, reform their curricula, and understand the role they must play in the modern world. They all suffer from the consequences of the Bolsonaro government, which is destroying everything.

Is there a risk of opposition to the electoral process? That it could harm the electoral process, no. But a dispute over the outcome, like the one that took place in the United States after the defeat of Donald Trump, may be more serious here. Many followers of Bolsonaro have already proven that they are insane enough to do this. I don’t think they have a chance of success, but the price they will impose on all of us will be very high.

Could the adoption of a semi-presidential system of government or reforms like those envisaged in the electoral system avoid such situations? It’s time to put an end to this hyperinstitutionalism. You cannot think that institutions are responsible for everything, and that you can solve everything by changing institutions. It is a way to correct the strategic mistakes of political players. It is very convenient for them to blame the institutions.

Bolsonaro is a product of a process of destruction of the democratic order that has been going on for a long time. This began after Dilma Rousseff’s re-election in 2014, when PSDB went to court to challenge the legality of the election results.

The challenge is to understand how democracy works and to accept that it implies defeat, victory, loss, negotiation, moderation, coexistence, etc. PSDB made a grave mistake by challenging the polls without presenting any evidence of fraud. Unsurprisingly, Bolsonaro threatens to do the same.

We will always have an elected president. No exit. If the country chooses the unprepared, we will have what we have. People who are in favor of reform think they will get a system of evidence in which only people like them will be elected. You can invent any system you want. This is not how it works.

If politicians make the same mistakes as they do, there is no defense against it. After Dilma’s re-election, some in the elite began to think that a fourth PC term would be unbearable. Why? They raised the retirement age for Federal Supreme Court ministers to prevent new vacancies from opening and filling PT. What’s the logic?

Insisting PT to start [o ex-presidente] Lula as a candidate in 2018, when he was arrested and obstructed by the electoral rules, was a mistake. PSDB was wrong to support Michel Temer’s government [2016-2018] even after the announcement [empresário] Josley Baptist. The party’s hypocrisy was evident, and its electorate shifted towards Jair Bolsonaro.

Are there any flaws in the political system that could be corrected? There is always a way to improve institutions. I say that this is not the problem. And there are issues that are less discussed than the electoral system, which seem more serious to me. A certain exaggeration of the autonomy given to some institutions that take on the role of mentors of the political system, such as the Supreme Court, the Prosecutor’s Office and even the PF.

These institutions are unstable because they are not monolithic. We all have a guy who goes one way, a guy who goes another way, but everyone enjoys independence and corporate and institutional protection to do whatever they want.

The Almighty is a constant source of instability. What happens in prisons of the second instance is inexplicable. In the midst of Lava Yato, the court closed its eyes and allowed a number of inconsistencies and extrapolations of the law, including abuses in pre-trial detention. They play with the result, not with the law, the rule.

The STF should act as an institution, a collective body. Fewer prohibitions, more plenary decisions. There is scope for internal reforms, including redefining their mandates, which may not be as far-reaching as they are today. Then the Almighty could begin to put things in order in this confusion.

Should the powers of the President of the Chamber of Deputies to end impeachment be reviewed? This does not seem to me to be a decisive reform. This would mean dealing with an exceptional situation, and we do not want to live in a world where we are always in a hurry to fix what we consider to be an urgent problem. We will do the same as STF.

Institutions and political leaders need to think a little more about the long term. Does this rule suit me when I am in government and I am in opposition? Is this the best rule of thumb for a majority or minority member of the STF? Nobody seems to be reasoning anymore.

Some stability will appear only when people think about the long-term perspective and think about the situation from the point of view of the persecuted, who can be the object of the arbitrariness of the authorities. Post-redemocratization Brazil is a success story from an institutional point of view of public policy and power change. Our destiny is not to live with this complete madness that we see today.

FERNANDO LIMONGI, 63

Doctor of Political Science from the University of Chicago, he was a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of São Paulo from 1986 to 2018. He currently teaches at the São Paulo School of Economics at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. published books “Democracy and Development” (2000), co-authored with Michael Alvarez, Jose Antonio Scheibub and Adam Przeworski, “Executive and legislative power in the new constitutional order” (1999) e “Fiscal Policy in the Presidency of Kaolizao” (2008), with Argelina Figueiredo of Rio State University.