RIO DE JANEIRO: The growing popularity of a lawmaker who praises torture and military dictatorship is the latest sign of Brazil slipping into unpredictable -- and some say dangerous -- political territory.
Jair Bolsonaro, a congressional deputy from Rio de Janeiro state, seized the limelight Sunday during a nationally televised vote in the lower house to send President Dilma Rousseff for impeachment.
Taking the microphone, Bolsonaro said he dedicated his vote in favor of deposing Rousseff to "the memory of Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra -- the terror of Dilma Rousseff."
The message was deliberately shocking: Ustra was a feared secret services chief in the 1964-1985 dictatorship, accused of torturing hundreds of the regime's opponents.
To Roussef in particular, it was a cruel insult: she was imprisoned and tortured in the 1970s as a young Marxist member of an underground armed group.
Rousseff could not bring herself to say Bolsonaro's name on Tuesday, but said it was "lamentable" to praise a man whom she "knew well" as "the biggest torturer of those times and responsible for many deaths."
But in a country where the president claims a coup is underway, the man who could soon replace her is just as unpopular, and 60 percent of Congress members are reportedly convicted or being investigated for crimes, Bolsonaro's brand of right-wing toughness appears to have struck a nerve.
Comments
Comments are closed.