Bolsonaro scores victory in bid to stave off impeachment

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro scored a major victory in his campaign to see off efforts to remove him from office by helping allies take over the top leadership positions in congress.

Despite mounting calls for the impeachment of the far-right leader over his mishandling of the pandemic, Mr Bolsonaro threw open the spending taps to help elect congressman Arthur Lira as the new president of the lower house in a bad-tempered election on Monday evening.

It falls to the head of the lower chamber to decide if and when to table impeachment motions. Mr Lira has ruled out such a move despite what a growing body of Brazilian jurists say is mounting evidence Mr Bolsonaro has committed multiple “crimes of responsibility”, the constitutional threshold for removal from office.

Leader of the bloc of the opportunistic parties for hire known as the Big Centre, Mr Lira cruised to victory in the in-house election, getting the backing of 302 of the chamber’s 513 members. He was helped by an unprecedented operation to garner support for him by Mr Bolsonaro’s administration.

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In the weeks leading up to the vote ministers offered billions in spending for the pet projects of deputies in return for backing Mr Lira, leading to accusations by opposition legislators the executive was engaging in blatant vote-buying.

Greater protection

While Monday’s elections buy Mr Bolsonaro greater protection against the growing calls for his removal, it also represents his surrender to the traditional practice of buying support in congress by distributing perks to deputies, a practice Mr Bolsonaro had previously condemned as one of the causes of the country’s culture of corruption.

Convicted of involvement in a scheme that robbed the equivalent of tens of millions of euro from the state assembly of Alagoas when he served there as a state deputy, Mr Lira was able to take his seat in congress in 2018 because a judge issued an injunction that blocked his exclusion for having fallen foul of anti-corruption laws. He denies any wrongdoing and is appealing the conviction.

He was also charged with assaulting his former wife but absolved by the supreme court. Later his former wife said she had withdrawn crucial evidence after being threatened by the congressman. He denies the accusations.

Earlier on Monday in the more independent-minded upper house, senator Rodrigo Pacheco was comfortably elected its new leader. Though he was backed by Mr Bolsonaro his promise to work with all parties in the chamber meant he was also supported by opposition parties, including the left-wing Workers Party.

With allies now in charge of the agenda of both houses of congress, Mr Bolsonaro's team is hoping to push its agenda more aggressively in order to rack up political wins ahead of his re-election campaign next year. But while the new congressional leadership looks favourably on the efforts of economy minister Paulo Guedes to liberalise the economy, it is less enthusiastic about the president's ultra-conservative social agenda.