This Friday, Brazil suffered a significant institutional setback in its fight against corruption and yet one more terrifying authoritarian move against its democratic regime.
The former Lava Jato judge and Minister of Justice, Sergio Moro, submitted his resignation in protest against the choice of the Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, to exchange the chief of the Brazilian Federal Police. Political interference in national oversight institutions has been a uniform problem during the Bolsonaro government.
This undermines the hard-won independence of those bodies, which has allowed for recent advances within the country’s fight against corruption. In a government marked by the corrosion of the democratic system, this new attack on national institutions isn’t an isolated act.
In its 2019 Annual Review and a report addressed to international organizations, Transparency International Brazil exposed the setbacks to Brazilian legal and institutional anti-corruption frameworks that happened last year, as well as attacks on the press and civil society.
Brazil must not tolerate another authoritarian advance and must answer these threats, which become more audacious a day .
The Federal Police, its members and sophistication associations, must resist, within the framework of the law, any political plan to interfere in its leadership.
The Prosecutor General’s Office and therefore the Supreme Court must investigate the crimes of fraud, failure to perform duties, coercion, obstruction of justice and corruption possibly committed by the President of the Republic.
Congress must deliberate on the alleged crimes committed by the President of the Republic and, if confirmed, enforce the rule of law.
Brazilian society should follow with the utmost attention and rigorously demand that the rule of law, institutions and democratic values prevail within the country.
