The Ghost that Hovers over Brazilian Democracy by João Roberto Martins Filho - 02/18/22
Three years into the current government, how can we assess the project that led the military to bet on Jair Bolsonaro as a way to return the armed forces to presidential power, shift the axis of Brazilian politics to the right, and interrupt successive Workers' Party victories at the national level?
The rapprochement between the generals and Jair Bolsonaro, an insubordinate former army captain, did not take place, as some officers have argued, only between the first and second rounds of the 2018 election. Rather, it dates back to November 2014, shortly after Dilma Rousseff's reelection and a month before the release of the final report of the National Truth Commission. Eduardo Villas Bôas, then the commander of the Army, considered the report a “stab in the back” that fostered “a feeling of betrayal in relation to the government” among the military rank and file.
Bolsonaro was then invited to the Agulhas Negras Military Academy graduation ceremony. Taking the stage, he launched his campaign for the 2018 presidential election in front of several dozen cadets, stating: “We have to change Brazil. Some will die along the way. But I am willing (...) to swing this country to the right.” He was applauded and greeted with shouts of “leader!” If not quite marking a pact with Bolsonaro, whose electoral potential seemed limited, the episode signaled to the armed forces that military leaders would ally themselves with the devil himself to defeat the Left.
The military also participated surreptitiously in the 2016 parliamentary coup against Dilma Rousseff, which brought to power Vice President Michel Temer, who had actively conspired against his former running mate. Notably, a military man, General Sergio Etchegoyen, became a key figure in the new government, recreating, rebuilding, and heading the Institutional Security Office (GSI) that Rousseff had dissolved.
During the 2018 campaign, the military acted in a coordinated manner in support of Bolsonaro. This happened both discretely, as in the case of the future cabinet-level Secretary of Government, Carlos Alberto Santos Cruz, and openly, in the case of both General Hamilton Mourão, Bolsonaro’s running mate, and Alberto Heleno, who would succeed Etchegoyen at head of the GSI.
For his part, General Villas Bôas exerted a direct influence over the course of the campaign when he tweeted, in April 2018, a veiled threat to the Brazilian Constitutional Court as it considered whether or not Lula could be imprisoned before he had exhausted all legal appeals in the cases against him. By 6 votes to 5, Lula was defeated, which made it possible to immediately arrest the former president. Lula’s removal from the race in turn paved the way for Bolsonaro’s victory in October 2018.
In January 2019, the new president publicly thanked Villas Bôas as “one of those responsible” for his victory. Soon thereafter, thousands of officers from across the armed forces were appointed to positions at various levels in the executive branch. When the new administration passed a federal civil service pension reform that reduced payments across the board, the military benefited with an exception. In fact, the armed forces received a career restructuring plan that increased salaries, especially for high-ranking officers. The military budget has been spared from subsequent cuts.
But Bolsonaro, utterly unprepared to govern, did not quite play the part the generals had envisioned, which included deference to his mentors in the barracks. In June 2019, he fired General Santos Cruz, the Secretary of Government. From then on, the generals have been exposed to numerous embarrassing incidents that have opened them up to criticism. For example, on May 31, 2020, Minister of Defense General Fernando Azevedo was in the presidential helicopter with its doors wide open when it flew over a demonstration against the National Congress and the Federal Supreme Court, a tacit show of support for the protest.
In addition to his actions as president, Bolsonaro found himself particularly vulnerable to bad fortune. This took the form of two processes. The first was the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic that was followed by disastrous federal policies to address the public health crisis under the leadership of a general as Minister of Health. The second was the unexpected return of Lula to the political scene, thanks to his release in the middle of November 2019 by decision of the Federal Supreme Court, and the subsequent annulment of the cases against him in mid-April 2021. Soon thereafter, the former president started to lead all opinion polls in the presidential race.
On the military front, a month earlier, Bolsonaro fired his defense minister and the three commanders of the armed forces. From that point on, the Army High Command gradually began a strategic retreat from its association with Bolsonaro. The military practically disappeared from political news coverage. With Lula as a strong candidate and Bolsonaro losing popularity, the scenario for military action became more difficult than in 2018, in part because of the erosion of the military’s public image.
Even so, if Lula is victorious in the 2022 presidential elections, it is possible that the military will seek to maintain a favorable position and some degree of power. It is unlikely, however, that members of the armed forces would retain the thousands of government jobs Bolsonaro has bestowed upon them. In addition, the military will tend to resist civilian command. Indeed, it seems implausible they will return to the barracks moved only by democratic convictions. Even if everything goes well in the event of Bolsonaro's defeat, the next government will have to count on time, as well as patience and luck, to solve the military problem, which will continue to cast its shadow over Brazilian democracy.
João Roberto Martins Filho is Full Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of São Carlos and a leading expert on the Brazilian armed forces.
