Bolsonaro caves to police demands after austerity protests

Alongside the Armed Forces, members of police forces across Brazil mobilized to elect Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. As a former Army captain himself, Mr. Bolsonaro used this support from public security workers to promote his heavy-handed law and order platform, which spoke directly to some of the most pressing concerns of the Brazilian population at the time.

Once in office, Mr. Bolsonaro showered the Army, Navy, and Air Force with a number of perks, sparing them from the hard-hitting 2019 pension reform and dishing out an unprecedented number of executive positions to individuals from the barracks.

But this special treatment was not extended to police forces. Feeling betrayed by the president they helped elect, public security unions announced on Wednesday they would cut ties with the government if their demands were not met. Later that same day, the Bolsonaro administration announced an agreement to preserve officers’ rights to automatic promotion as part of a new coronavirus austerity bill.

Indeed, the austerity proposal was the source of this recent police outrage....