Hemorrhaging support due to Brazil’s coronavirus catastrophe and pressured into a change of course by allies in Congress, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro is scrambling to protect his position and avoid parliamentary investigations into his government’s pandemic response. Opposition senators have banded together to request the opening of a Parliamentary Hearings Committee (CPI) to investigate the Bolsonaro administration’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis.
They have enough support to push the CPI forward, but Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco — elected with Mr. Bolsonaro’s support — has so far blocked the investigation.
Mr. Pacheco’s task is becoming harder by the day, however, as pressure to set up the hearings committee reaches fever pitch.
Meanwhile, several state lawmakers and city councilors — many of them supportive of the president — are launching their own CPIs in at least nine states, seeking to investigate the role of municipal and state administrations in fighting the pandemic. However, beyond analyzing government spending and measures to combat the crisis — which would be the main scope of a federal CPI —...
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