Brazil’s Senate hearings committee to investigate the Jair Bolsonaro administration’s pandemic response will finish its sitting by September 17, when Senator Renan Calheiros is due to submit his final report.
The committee’s mandate allows it to operate until November, but lawmakers believe they have exhausted all lines of investigation that could prove the president was deliberately negligent in his efforts to curb coronavirus infection rates and boost vaccine rollouts in the country. An additional, and perhaps more important reason for terminating the hearings is the perception that the public is losing interest.
Since kicking off in April, the committee has painted a gruesome picture of a government that actively boycotted vaccine deals, headed by a president who disregarded nearly all sanitary recommendations — from promoting gatherings with unmasked supporters to touting unproven treatments against the virus.
Senior members of the committee want to recommend the indictment of President Jair Bolsonaro for charlatanism, shamanism, and murder. “To cause an epidemic by propagating pathogenic germs can be punished by 10 to 15 years in prison,” said opposition Senator Randolfe Rodrigues,...
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