On September 7, Brazil’s Independence Day, right-wing activists and self-proclaimed Bolsonaristas rallied in support of President Jair Bolsonaro, his beleaguered administration, and his escalating attacks on the country’s supreme court and other institutions.
For the past year or so, quantitative polls produced by various institutes have been revealing the constant decline in Jair Bolsonaro’s popularity throughout various social and socioeconomic strata. However, there has not yet been conducted a study that comprehensively captures the feelings and perceptions of the Bolsonarista electorate in depth.
The political crisis that has dragged on in Brazil since 2013 reached its most critical point three weeks ago. Harassed by the legal siege against his far-right allies, President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro doubled down and asked the Federal Senate to impeach justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF, Brazil’s highest court). This is the first such request to be made in the 132 years of the Federative Republic of Brazil.
For Latin American governments and consumers, as well as for the United States and other global actors, therefore, the question of DiDi Chuxing and the expanding presence of Chinese e-commerce companies in general is particularly urgent.
While visiting Brazil last week, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned President Jair Bolsonaro against interfering with the country’s upcoming presidential elections, scheduled for October of next year. In recent weeks—amid slumping poll numbers, a staggered economy, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to kill an average of 1,000 Brazilians per day—Bolsonaro has taken to criticizing Brazil’s electronic voting system as vulnerable to massive voter fraud and has threatened to delay next year’s elections if a system reliant on paper ballots is not adopted in its place.
In May, Jaime Lerner—Brazilian architect, politician, and pioneer of urban planning—passed away from a chronic kidney condition at the age of 83. His vision for the world, however, lives on.
The following interview between Global Americans’ Executive Director Guy Mentel and Francisco J. Monaldi took place this week as the Biden-Harris administration moves to combat climate change and as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt global oil markets.
In Brazil—still in the throes of the pandemic, as evidenced by the country’s ignominious passage through the threshold of 500,000 dead from COVID-19—public dissatisfaction with the government of President Jair Bolsonaro collided this week with a looming socio-environmental catastrophe: a historic drought that has parched large swathes of Brazil’s Centro-Oeste (i.e., the states of Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul) and populous southeast (in particular, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Paraná, three of the most populous states in the country) in advance of the annual Amazon wildfire season.
Once again, history seems to be repeating itself. The United States, along with the world’s other rich and mostly Western countries, continue to be accused of hoarding medical supplies, having purchased one billion surplus vaccine doses (more than is required to vaccinate their citizens). In their absence, China—and, to a lesser extent, Russia—have rushed to take advantage of the vaccine gap in the Global South, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean.
