Tijolaço: Rio, we are under intervention. When will we be at war?

By Fernando Brito, editor of Tijolaço

 

Strictly speaking, Rio de Janeiro no longer has a government.

It is under an absolutely cowardly type of federal intervention, which not only fails to acknowledge it, but also allows the political, administrative, and economic corpse of Luiz Fernando Pezão to receive the daily beating of a crisis against which he cannot react and over which he no longer has any control.

The "soap opera" of the Federal Government's support, announced by Henrique Meirelles on January 11th, is still just a promise, and the Supreme Federal Court – but what on earth do financial "agreements" between the Union and a State of the Federation need to be mediated by the STF, if they are legal? – has just today postponed the (perhaps) outcome for another month.

The Judiciary is joining the Executive in its irresponsibility: if there is a solution, why delay it?

For now, all we're going to get are Army troops, tasked with playing the role of police, a role that is threatened to no longer be performed by the state police: the civil police have already stopped work and the military police are experiencing a semi-paralysis.

The state governor, who had already been removed from office due to cancer, has become a worthless figure, lacking any political authority: he was forced by the Federal Government to hand over the Water and Sewage Company as a result of privatization and lacks the strength to force down the throats of an Assembly that is beyond reproach the bitter medicine they demand of him.

Perhaps what still keeps him in office – which the Electoral Court has already attempted to remove from him – is the fact that, without the mandate, the machinery that is grinding down – with ample “merit” – Sérgio Cabral will crush him once and for all. Or does anyone doubt that, without the immunity afforded by his office, he will be just another character in the police-judicial pyrotechnics?

Rio de Janeiro, a state that has always been targeted by economic powers due to its perpetual political insubordination, is literally kneeling before the central government, and this will worsen in the coming days.

There is no possibility of maintaining the Army as responsible for all security in the State, which is not comparable in size to the Greater Vitória region. It is very different from punctual, localized interventions, where the concentration of a large number of soldiers intimidates and yields some results.

The police force has already ceased to function normally, and it's clear that many people are betting on the situation worsening in order to force a "solution" for an administration that has no future.

Incredibly, so far, only organized crime is cooperating to prevent everything from falling apart, because if the firepower and coordination that is so often touted in this so-called "organized crime" exist, there is no doubt that they would be able to do as much or more here than the PCC did in the past in São Paulo.

And if he does so, with the Army tasked with maintaining order, the institutional consequences are unpredictable.