* Written in collaboration with Bruno Silva, Researcher at the Laboratory of Politics and Government (UNESP), Law Study Group at UNICAMP (LEGU) and Center for Local Policy Research (NEPOL / UFJF). Coordinator of Political Education Programs in the Corporate Sector.

Over the past 30 years in the health sector, we have a model of action based on shared responsibility and federal coordination. This model is the foundation of the Unified Health System (SUS). The management of the system, which the Ministry of Health refers to, has until then been constant in the various strategies being pursued: vaccination campaigns, epidemic control, arbovirus outbreaks, and others. However, in the context of the health crisis we are experiencing, there is a difference in the balance of power supporting the policy process. State and municipal executive power has taken center stage in the face of the federal government’s inability to unite and coordinate. For now, subnational governments must be directly involved in pandemic action in the absence of leadership and structural support from the national health authority. In this context, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed serious challenges to Brazilian municipalities. Municipal administrations had to deal with requirements that were previously associated with the federal sphere of government.

The municipality of Araraquara, São Paulo state also has difficulties recorded throughout the country during the pandemic. Faced with a lack of firm direction from the federal government to guide subnational governments in the context of a health emergency, the City of Araraquara needed to develop its own action plan. In 2020, Ararakuara created a framework to deal with the pandemic. Institutionally, a “Coronavirus Emergency Committee” was formed, which became responsible for defining policies to combat the disease. This core, made up of members of the executive, especially the secretaries of the areas most needed to tackle the pandemic, such as health, social services and education, in addition to clinical directors of the main health institutions in the municipality, jointly determine the measures. officially adopted by the government. In addition, with the help of a scientific committee, the municipal administration took action that is believed to have allowed the municipality of 238,000 to have the lowest mortality rate among cities with a population of over 100,000 in the entire state of São Paulo and the third highest mortality rate in Brazil. … This structure also revealed an increase in the infection curve in early 2021. During this period, the mayor’s office imposed lockdowns to contain the sudden increase in COVID-19 cases and the filling of intensive care beds during the onset of the second wave.

If, on the one hand, these measures attracted the attention of the national press and positively influenced the fight against the disease, on the other hand, they caused very negative consequences in the business circles of the city and ultimately caused the president’s antipathy. Jair Bolsonaro, who chose the mayor as one of his personal enemies. At the local level, this signal from the president has served as fuel for members of the municipal political opposition and those sections of society that support the president to rebel against the mayor and decisions made in the municipality.

Araracuara is ruled for the fourth time by PC member Edinho Silva, who was Mayor’s Office from 2001 to 2008 (2 terms), 2017-2020 and was recently re-elected Mayor in 2020. the fact that he was the campaign treasurer of ex-president Dilma Rousseff, as well as the chief minister of the Secretariat for Social Communications (Secom) in 2015 and a person very close to ex-president Lula. Now, after this week’s events in the city, he also began to accumulate victory with the City Council of Aldermen in rejecting a request for impeachment against him.

Last Monday (August 2), MPs Eduardo Bolsonaro (PSL-SP), Elio Lopez (PSL-RJ) and Carla Zambelli (PSL-SP) attended the municipality to take part in an event that brought together President Bolsonaro’s supporters and local leaders. parties that oppose the mayor in the Legislative Assembly, especially the members of PATRIOTA and PODEMOS. Following the act, which the organizers said was to deliver grocery baskets to social assistance organizations in the municipality, part of a group led by Eduardo Bolsonaro went to the city council to submit a request for impeachment against the mayor of the city.

The main object of the request will be the purchase of respirators by the city of Araraquara in April 2020 for the treatment of COVID-19. At the time, the purchase of 25 electronic respirators from RY Top Brasil Ltda for approximately R $ 4.1 million was a signal given by the city of the company to secure a deal (in the context of a dispute over the purchase of devices around the world) of around R $ 1 million. As a result, the company did not deliver the devices, and the mayor’s office canceled the deal and went to court with a demand to return the money originally paid. In July last year, more than a year after negotiations, the city won the case and has already received part of the payments. However, this issue sometimes becomes the object of criticism from opponents in order to undermine the image of the mayor. It even triggered pressure, which resulted in a request for the opening of a Special Commission of Inquiry (CEI) in the municipal legislature, whose work should already begin in the city: after the immunization of the population against COVID-19. The CEI, like the Senate CPI Covid, will have a presidential base of support for the mayor in the legislature and an opposition rapporteur.

However, even as CEI began its work, members of the local opposition filed a request for impeachment – in particular, the mayoral candidates and vice-mayors who were defeated in elections against Edinho Silva in 2020, Dr. Lapena and Coronel Prado (both PATRIOT ), had the expectation that the request could be satisfied by the legislature. Decree-Law 201/1967 establishes possible crimes related to the responsibility of mayors and councilors, and in its article 5, paragraph II, it specifies that the president of the chamber must read the request and consult the legislature regarding its admissibility. The vote to accept or reject the process took place last Tuesday, the day after it was submitted. This was also due to the fact that in cases where there is no specific local legislation on the matter, it should be handled in this way, even in accordance with the aforementioned Ordinance – the case of Ararakuara, which does not provide for a rite of passage for the process in his municipal organic law, nor in city ​​council decree.

Even before it was submitted for discussion and voting in the Legislative Assembly, the political action had already been subjected to the most expressive criticism. Outside the legislature, hundreds of supporters defended the mayor’s response to the pandemic. The request was rejected by 13 votes of advisers to 4 in favor. The mayor’s political base in the Legislature, which includes about 9 out of 18 councilors in the House of Representatives, enjoyed the support of more independent Legislative advisers, including PSDB and the local PSL, in whose speeches they emphasized the political responsibility of the Legislature. against the dreams of adventurers.

The Ararakuara case exposed the conflicts that local leaders face when making decisions in the context of the health emergency caused by COVID-19. With little support from the federal government, mayors and women may find it difficult to make the right decisions from a public health perspective, but this can come with high political costs. However, it appears that in Araraquara, decisions based on scientific evidence have not, at this time, entailed high political costs for Mayor Edinho.