A possible alternative to military intervention.

If the Executive branch is corrupt, if the majority of Congress is bought, if the Judiciary has lost all credibility in the eyes of the public, a military intervention to try to regenerate republican institutions is almost inevitable. I don't like the idea, as I've already noted in a previous article. A military government can quickly degenerate into a long-term dictatorship, as happened in 64. However, there is a virtuous possibility, as happened with Marshal Lott's democratic coup to ensure JK's inauguration in 1954.

The problem is that a coup is not a government. If the military seizes power, what will they do with the Brazilian economy to get out of the acute crisis we are in? Obviously, they will have to govern. Since they are not experts in economics, they will have to resort to civilian advisors. Due to their training, military personnel tend towards economic orthodoxy, fiscal conservatism, and neoliberalism. This means that, under the power of arms, we continue to risk a regressive policy under neoliberal command.

We have a crisis of much less severity than in '64. At that time, the military president Castello Branco handed over the economy to Octávio Gouvêa de Bulhões, in the Finance Ministry, and to Roberto Campos, in Planning. Bulhões was a poet, he didn't really have any power. Campos, undeniably a master of planning, pretending to be orthodox, was the one in charge. Campos structured Brazil's infrastructure in telecommunications, electricity, logistics and, above all, long-term financing (BNDE and BNH).

If, hypothetically, the military were to seize power now, who would be their main actors in the Finance and Planning ministries? More specifically, what would they do with the 159 billion reais deficit invented by Meirelles' neoliberals to favor the banking system? Would they implement Amendment 95, which mandates a 20-year freeze on social budgets, including the budgets of the Armed Forces themselves? What would they do with the also fabricated pension crisis, similarly created to appease bankers and expand the private sector's influence in that area?

Will the future military ministers, the result of the intervention that may occur, maintain the indecent privatization program of 57 companies, many of them strategic, which are being offered to the appetite of foreign investors at this very moment? What will become of the electricity sector and the pre-salt oil reserves, the foundations of Brazilian energy sovereignty, also offered for a pittance to foreigners? What will become of water, a public good of high social and national interest, similarly put up for sale to foreigners?

I believe there is a way to avoid military intervention: dismantle the corrupt and anti-national system built by Temer's cronies. And, with a little patience and great popular mobilization, progressives can arrive at next year's elections in a competitive position. From there, the Revocatory Referendum suggested by Senator Roberto Requião will be proposed to annul all the sell-out, anti-national, and neoliberal measures put in place by the Temer government, while simultaneously implementing a Keynesian program to resume growth and end the economic crisis.