World / Brazil Prez coughs repeatedly during speech at protest over COVID-19 restrictions

Brasilia: Former presidents, politicians and newspaper editorial boards have lined up to denounce the “moronic” and “anti-democratic” behaviour of Brazil’s far-right leader after he hit the streets to egg on protesters demanding a return to military dictatorship.

As the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 rose to nearly 2,500 on Sunday, Jair Bolsonaro left his presidential palace in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, to fraternize with flag-waving radicals.

Among the demands their banners listed were an end to the social distancing measures opposed by Bolsonaro, the closure of Brazil’s congress and supreme court, and a re-run of a dictatorship-era decree used by military rulers in the late 1960s to suffocate their political opponents.

At one point – snubbing social distancing rules for the umpteenth time since the coronavirus crisis began – Brazil’s paratrooper-turned-president clambered onto a truck to address the hundreds-strong assembly.

“The era of roguery is over. Now it’s the people who are in power,” Bolsonaro proclaimed outside the Brazilian army headquarters, coughing repeatedly as he spoke.

“Everyone in Brazil must understand that they must yield to the will of the Brazilian people.”

Bolsonaro’s outing – which some suspect was a deliberate provocation designed to distract from the rising Covid-19 death toll – sparked immediate censure.

Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who governed from 1995 until 2003, tweeted: “Deplorable for the president to join anti-democratic protests. It’s time to unite around the constitution against all threats to democracy.”

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president from 2003 to 2010, tweeted: “The same constitution that allows a president to be democratically elected also contains devices to stop them leading the country to the destruction of democracy and a genocide of the population.”

Rodrigo Maia, the head of Brazil’s lower house, said Brazil was in a dual fight against coronavirus “and the virus of authoritarianism”.

“In total, 2,462 deaths have been recorded in Brazil. Preaching a democratic rupture in the face of these deaths represents an unforgivable cruelty to the families of victims,” Maia tweeted. “We don’t have time to waste with coup-mongering bombast.”

Eduardo Paes, Rio de Janeiro’s former mayor, tweeted: “There have always been morons going around ranting against democracy … Generally they’re minorities whose tickles you don’t even feel.”

“[But it’s] something quite different when it’s the president – a democratically elected one – joining this kind of movement. There’s no way to remain quiet and not repudiate this,” Paes added.

The O Globo broadsheet called Bolsonaro’s speech a “dangerous” assault on the democratic rule of law.

Even members of the military top brass were reportedly upset, with one senior official urging citizens to ignore Bolsonaro’s actions. “Let the president talk to the nutters on his lonesome,” they told the news magazine Veja.

On Monday morning Bolsonaro denied he had been attacking Brazilian democracy but told reporters: “I am actually the Constitution”.

Bolsonaro is a longstanding fan of the military men who ruled Brazil from 1964 until 1985, and autocrats including Chile’s Augusto Pinochet.

Bolsonaro’s reaction to Covid-19 – which he has downplayed as media “hysteria” – has proved similarly controversial. Last week Bolsonaro sacked his popular health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who had clashed with him for undermining health ministry recommendations designed to protect Brazilian lives.

Mandetta’s replacement Nelson Teich made no immediate comment on Bolsonaro’s decision to flout the same guidelines on Sunday.