Bolsonaro makes power grab on federal university system

Brazil's congress has vowed to block an attempt by President Jair Bolsonaro to use the coronavirus pandemic as cover to seize control over swathes of the country's federal university system.

The country’s academic community reacted with fury to an executive order signed this week by Mr Bolsonaro that would allow the ministry of education to appoint rectors to federal universities without elections or public consultation during the coronavirus crisis.

Brazil now leads the world for daily deaths from Covid-19. The official total death toll has passed 40,000, while the number of new cases continues to rise inexorably.

The executive order is just the latest in a series of authoritarian moves by the far-right leader in recent months which have caused growing unease about his intentions, prompting the head of the supreme court to question his commitment to democracy earlier this week.

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‘Scumbags’ accusation

The Bolsonaro administration has previously targeted universities with funding cuts and education minister Abraham Weintraub has vowed to combat what he sees as "cultural Marxism" in the sector. Earlier this month, Mr Weintraub was called in for questioning by federal police after he was filmed in an April cabinet meeting calling supreme court justices "scumbags" who should be thrown in jail.

The video was made public after it was included as evidence in the investigation into whether Mr Bolsonaro illegally interfered in the leadership of the federal police to protect his family. The probe was launched following the resignation of justice minister Sergio Moro in April after the president appointed a family friend to lead the force over his objections.

The supreme court swiftly blocked the appointment, causing a further deterioration in its relations with the president. These are already tense because of an investigation ordered by the supreme court into the use of fake news, which in recent weeks has come to focus on political and business allies of Mr Bolsonaro.

Evidence gathered in that investigation could now be passed to the country’s top electoral court, which is hearing several cases of alleged law-breaking by Mr Bolsonaro’s successful 2018 presidential campaign, which made systematic use of fake news spread via WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

Victory annulment

If the court finds against the president, it could annul his victory and call for new elections, though legal analysts consider such a move unlikely.

In another front between the presidency and country’s top court on Monday, supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the health ministry to go back to publishing full numbers of deaths and infections of Covid-19 after a change in its methodology was widely criticised as being designed to try to hide the true number of deaths in the country.

Brazil has been without a full-time health minister since May 15th, with the post temporarily occupied by an army general with no background in public health.

Despite the failure to control transmission of coronavirus, authorities are moving ahead with relaxing containment measures across large parts of the country. Streets in the centre of São Paulo were crowded on Wednesday after shops opened their doors for the first time in 83 days.