Bresser: Why doesn't Bolsonaro honor his oath to respect the Constitution?

247 Former minister Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira states that Bolsonaro does not want to govern and that his behavior has already exceeded all tolerable limits. He says: "the What is happening in Brazil? How is it possible to have a president who, instead of governing, misgoverns? Who, instead of moving forward with pension reform, sabotages it? Who, instead of honoring his ministers, ignores them? Who, instead of respecting the Legislative and Judicial branches, declares himself at war with them? Why does this man, whose political life is marked by contempt for democracy and the defense of dictatorship, police violence, and torture, not honor his oath to respect the Brazilian Constitution?

In a Facebook postBresser then moved the reflection towards further questions and a light at the end of the tunnel: he says that Brazilian democracy will withstand all of this.

Read the full text of Bresser Pereira's post:

"What is happening in Brazil? How is it possible to have a president who, instead of governing, misgoverns? Who, instead of carrying out the pension reform, sabotages it? Who, instead of honoring his ministers, ignores them? Who, instead of respecting the Legislative and Judicial branches, declares himself in conflict with them? Why does this man, whose political life is marked by contempt for democracy and the defense of dictatorship, police violence, and torture, not honor his oath to respect the Brazilian Constitution? Why doesn't he stop writing ideological tweets to his electoral base, as if he were campaigning, instead of confronting the unemployment problem that the slow recovery of the Brazilian economy fails to solve?"

I only see one answer to these questions. This figure doesn't want to solve problems, but is committed to creating them. He doesn't want to make the compromises necessary to govern. He doesn't understand that politics is the art of arguing and making compromises to achieve a majority. He thinks that governing in this way is not worthwhile. That he needs more power to establish order in the country – an order that democracy would have destroyed.

How could this man achieve this goal? How can he relate the growing chaos into which he is plunging the country to his desire for more power? In a way that is as rational as it is absurd. With increasing confusion and disorder, he hopes to be called upon to exercise more power, end "old politics," and subdue "old justice."

This is a strategy that is only rational if that person believes they are destined to save Brazil and thinks Brazilians are searching for this savior. Otherwise, it is absurd if democracy is an achievement of the Brazilian nation, of Brazilian civil society – it is something that the Brazilian people are absolutely unwilling to give up.

The institutions that guarantee Brazilian democracy may be in crisis, but they are solid and constitute a guarantee. Brazilian society, its journalists, its intellectuals, its liberal professionals, its teachers, its workers, its youth are beginning to organize in defense of democracy. Businessmen and public servants are always more cautious, but they are not interested in Brazil's return to authoritarianism and arbitrariness. Brazilian democracy is a consolidated democracy and will know how to resist the irresponsible attack that evil is mounting against it.