Bolsonaro's government is a criminal regime. One of his first goals was to destroy the agencies that regulate the environment and disable the reporting mechanisms (which were "fake news" according to him). He personally fired the president of INPE, a state research agency, for publicizing a report about Amazon deforestation.
It is the crisis of our time. Bolsonaro is shameless, grossly lying. People are too afraid to say otherwise, and there is a critical mass of people who are willing to be party to the lying that creates social pressure against speaking to truth. Obviously not just limited to Brazil.
Similar things happening in Mexico under Obrador. The current government defunded some agencies and programs that were set to protect and monitor the environment. For instance, they stopped Satelital monitoring of forest fires, increased incentives for deforestation, reduced technical personnel, etc...
Mexico seems to be inverting the popular phrase: "You can't improve what You can't measure". They defunded an agency in charge of measuring effectiveness of governmental programs, eliminated testing requirement for teachers, etc...
I live in Brazil and I disagree. I think his government is messy, but the previous ones were pretty bad as well. They almosted bankrupted the country, which was why Bolsonaro managed to elect himself as president with the argument of "I'm not them". He is simply incompetent, which shows.
The EU [0], the USA [1], The Lima Group [2], and the IACHR [3] have all denounced the Venezuelan election as fraudulent among others. The Electoral Integrity Project at Harvard lists 46 countries total that have issued denunciations and gives a thorough explanation of electoral fraud in Venezuela [4]:
> "Chávez created a political regime based on a concentration of power that allowed him to co-opt the Supreme Tribunal and the National Electoral Council. An example of this was the 2004 recall referendum procedure that was manipulated by Chávez to assure his victory."
> "Maduro was elected in 2013, in a contentious election. After that, electoral malpractices increased, particularly after the Supreme Tribunal decided to dismantle the Venezuelan Congress."
> "in January 2018 the illegitimate national Constituency Assembly decided to convene an early presidential election. The single-party assembly was installed in a clear violation of the Venezuelan Constitution. In any case, according to the Venezuelan Constitution, elections must be called with at least six months’ notice."
>"The national constituency assembly decided to ban the participation of several opposition political parties [...]. In addition, several political leaders were banned, while others were prosecuted or are in exile. The right to participate in public affairs and to be elected was violated."
> "The National Electoral Council’s Directors were appointed by the Supreme Tribunal, and not by the Venezuelan Congress, as established in the Constitution. This facilitated its politicization, as was demonstrated during the 2016 recall referendum against Maduro, which was blocked by the Council."
> "The right to equal opportunities to vote and universal suffrage was violated due to several inconsistencies in the electoral register. This included issues for Venezuelans living abroad: only an estimated hundred thousand Venezuelans [of the 4-5 million exiles] were able to comply with the electoral register."
> "Freedom of opinion and expression has been violated, particularly, since the Constituent Assembly approved an “anti-hate law”, that established ill-defined crimes punished with prison up to twenty years. Criticizing the Government can be considered a hate crime."
> "Several critics stated that the Government used social programs to coerce voters, in violation of the Anti-Corruption Law. For instance, Henri Falcon (Maduro’s main opponent in the election) denounced that Maduro used the “fatherland card” –required to access medicine and food provided by the Government- to coerce voters."
> the 2018 election had a 40% turnout (half the turnout in the previous election but the EIP also notes: "abstention could not be deemed as the cause of Maduro’s “victory”. On the contrary, abstention is the consequence of fraudulent actions that allowed Maduro’s reelection".
It is also worth noting that the one legitimate source Maduro insists on evoking to proclaim the legitimacy of its election is the Carter Center which also issued a statement calling those claims misleading and claiming that "The Carter Center has not observed elections formally in Venezuela since 2004"[5].
As for Bolsonaro, his electorial upset and later actions was met with an Economist cover calling him "Latin America's latest menace" [6], An opinion piece by the Editorial Board calling him "Brazil's Sad Choice"[7], an extended segment by John Oliver [8], an extended segment by Hasan Minhaj specifically about the Amazon in May [9], an entire documentary about his rise to power distributed by Netflix [10]. The numerous articles in major media organizations about these recent fires are part of a long trend of robust (and rightful) scrutiny of Bolsonaro's beliefs from election to administration.
I'd like to emphasize this is not my apology of American diplomacy in Venezuela or of Bolsonaro's administration. I am troubled by Mr. Bolsonaro's medieval worldview and assaults on institutions. I also am worrisome about how much US seems to be flirting with military intervention in Venezuela.
But claiming that (a): the 2018 Venezuelan poll was a "legitimate election" and that (b): Brazil's government "gets no media coverage" is resolutely false and doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
Upvoted. Bolsonaro's government is a criminal regime in the same way that every Brazilian government has been criminal. You basically need to commit crimes to get elected in Brazil and commit more once you're elected to stay in power.
