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Leaked Bolsonaro video escalates Brazil's political crisis

THE political scandal engulfing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro escalated over the weekend after Friday’s release of a video-recorded cabinet meeting.

The two-hour video, which has portions redacted, was released as part of a probe into allegations that Mr Bolsonaro was trying to meddle in police matters to protect family members – and it appears to confirm these claims.

“I already tried to change our security in Rio de Janeiro” (where his sons are subject to a police investigation) “and I couldn’t. That is over. I will not wait for them to screw my entire family,” the president says.

“If you can’t change the official, change his boss. If you can’t change the boss, change the minister. End of story. I’m not kidding around,” Mr Bolsonaro rages to his ministers in the video filmed in late April. 

He now states that the words contain “no indication of interference in the federal police” and that he was referring to his personal bodyguards, but opposition politicians say the video shows the accusations against him – originally made by his justice minister Sergio Moro, who resigned – are justified.

The Communist governor of Maranhao, Flavio Dino, said the revelations of the video are “serious” as they “confirm Sergio Moro’s accusation” and “show unmistakable despotic impulses.” He noted that elsewhere in the video Mr Bolsonaro talks of distributing guns among the population, while Education Minister Abraham Weintraub states that all Supreme Court justices should be jailed – a comment that Supreme Court Justice Celso de Mello, who authorised the video’s release, remarked on as “an apparent crime against the honour” of the court.

Critics also pointed out that dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic barely features in the meeting, except that Mr Bolsonaro calls on ministers to defend his record on it and says he would not accept being removed from office based on how he handles it.

“If I have to go down one day may we fall fighting for a good reason – not for a stupid anti-virus exam, for the love of God,” he rants. The words may now appear callous as Brazil’s coronavirus death toll climbed above 20,000 over the weekend.

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