As Congress kicks off pandemic hearings, Bolsonaro strikes back

The relationship between Brazil’s Congress and the Supreme Court has always been laced with tension. And on a few occasions, that agitation has reached boiling points — like in 2016, when the court tried to suspend the then-Senate President, who was facing multiple corruption charges. The Senate put its foot down and simply ignored the ruling, creating an institutional fiasco. On Thursday evening, one Supreme Court justice ordered the Senate to launch a probe into the Bolsonaro government’s pandemic response — meaning we should expect new levels of vitriol flying back and forth across Brasília’s Three Powers Square.

Parliamentary hearings committees, or CPIs, are explosive matters for any government — but this one may be particularly damaging. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Jair Bolsonaro administration has been a textbook example of how not to deal with the coronavirus, using its structure to force ineffective treatments on patients, spread misinformation, and delay the signature of vaccine purchases — which has affected rollouts in the country.

Meanwhile, coronavirus deaths continue to pile up, and Brazil’s hospital and funeral systems are facing collapse.

It is hard to imagine any positive outcome for the government if the CPI does indeed go ahead. For that reason, the administration wasted no time by reacting to the decision on multiple fronts: trying to convince senators who signed the CPI request to withdraw their support, attacking the Supreme Court with threats of their own investigations, and attempting to shift the public attention to other scandals.

Indeed, neither of these strategies will aid the country’s health system or get more jabs in Brazilians’ arms.

On Friday, President Jair Bolsonaro set the...