Brazilian Protests next March, 15 – What’s at stake?

By Pedro Lima Neto, with a contribution from Rodrigo García Mariotti.

I have seen many articles in the international media distorting what will happen next March 15 in Brazil. The Guardian newspaper wrote on the title of an article: “Outrage as Jair Bolsonaro appears to endorse Brazil anti-democracy protests”, and the article itself said that “hardcore supporters of Brazil’s far-right president are planning nationwide protests on 15 March and have been flooding social media with propaganda videos and fliers attacking members of Congress – and even proposing a return to military rule under Bolsonaro”.

Is that the case of the protest? As a brazilian citizen I can assure to the international community that this is not the case. That is not, by far, any risk to our democracy. What we have is a tremendous biased leftist media trying to sell a version (a very distorted one, I must say) of the protests, in which the elected president of Brazil is depicted in the most negative way possible. This is by far a pure propaganda, that cannot resist the facts.

First, our Constitution assures in its fifth paragraph the freedom to protest in at least three clear  principles:

• Free speech or thought – “IV - the expression of thought is free, being forbidden anonymity”.
• Freedom of gathering – “XVI - everyone can meet peacefully, without weapons, in places open to the public, regardless of authorization, as long as they do not frustrate another meeting previously called to the same place, requiring only prior notice to the competent authority;”
• Freedom to associate – “XVII - freedom of association for lawful purposes is complete, and paramilitary character is prohibited”;

By those principles, the next March 15 protest is legal over all aspects.

picture of March 16, 2016 protest that resulted in Dilma Rouseff's impeachment

So, what is actually happening is a reaction of the people against our physiologist congress that is used to bargain the executive branch for funds in return for votes. The president of Brazil is not accepting this game and supports the protests against that. The problem is that this is not the version being told by the press, who is also used to raise high quantities of money over governmental publicity, which now has gone dry over Bolsonaro’s administration.

The real problem why the media and our parlament seams so “chocked” over presidential support to the protests called for March 15 resides only over money and power. Media is out of money and congress is also trying to make things "work" as usual (that is, the public money bargain against Executive needs to be "free"). There is no support for “closing the congress” or “resurrect the dictatorship” in Brazil. This is the lie, the propaganda that the corrupt media is trying to sell overseas, including brazilian authorities from other branches, who are frightened by people’s pressure on the streets.

Another thing to consider is that this protest was already set before to 2020/03/15 (date in which the president is acused of "endorsing" the protest), but now has a more specific guideline: to protect Bolsonaro from the legislative that is trying to diminish Bolsonaro's presidential power.

Federal budget in Brazil has many mandatory expenditures, that cannot be changed, just have to be payed, like federal employees salaries, interests and other administration expenditures. Only about 6 percent of Brazilian federal budget can be managed and used as Bolsonaro and the executive power wants. Out of this 6 percent, the legislative also wants about 7 billion dollars extra to use themselves to send to their states and cities, mostly because of upcoming municipal elections in October 2020.

General Heleno, a Minister who is very close to Bolsonaro, was caught "off records" saying that the executive should not accept legislative’s blackmailing, and he is right about that.

Now, leftist biased media is tying to sell the story that Bolsonaro wants to capture legislative power, but that's quite the opposite. Also, Bolsonaro (who is not leading the protest) just sent a video about the protest organization to some of his personal contacts and now journalists who got this from a source are accusing him of supporting and stimulating the protest against the legislative, what would configure a kind of interference in an independent power, but the case was far from that, since he only sent a private message to his contacts and was not officially supporting the protest.

To sumarize, it is the people and the Brazilian president against a corrupt system and media, who are scared to death because no one ever stood against them before.

Let’s see what will happen next March 15 on another strong demonstration of the natural democratic process in Brazil: people on the streets yelling against a physiologic congress and a corrupt media.