Brazil President Bolsonaro fires Health Minister Mandetta
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has sacked his popular health minister, Luiz Mandetta, after a weeks-long standoff between the two men over radically different views of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I have just received notice of my dismissal from President Jair Bolsonaro. I would like to say thank you for the opportunity that was given to me, to manage our health service … and to plan our fight against the coronavirus epidemic, this great challenge that our health system is about to face,” Mandetta tweeted on Thursday.
Mandetta has defended social isolation while the far-right president insists the impact of the pandemic on Brazil’s struggling economy is more important than loss of life.
Bolsonaro’s downplaying of coronavirus – and his public call for Brazil to relax quarantine measures and get back to work – has appalled critics and many citizens, sparking nightly pot-banging protests in major cities.
Bolsonaro’s efforts to undermine regional governments’ efforts to enforce such shutdowns have sparked a political rebellion by the governors of nearly all of Brazil’s 27 states.
Recent modelling by researchers from Imperial College London suggested Brazil could have more than 1.1 million Covid-19 deaths if no action were taken to control the pandemic; 529,000 if only elderly people were forced to isolate; and 44,200 if drastic measures were implemented.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Bolsonaro said that Mandetta’s departure from the government was a “consensual divorce”, but his dismissal has the potential to cause a major public revolt.
Earlier this month research by one of Brazil’s top pollsters showed 76% of Brazilians backed the health ministry’s response to coronavirus under Mandetta while only 33% backed Bolsonaro’s.
Writing ahead of Bolsonaro’s decision, the political commentator Leandro Colon said Mandetta’s sacking might be good news “for those rooting for Jair Bolsonaro’s quick downfall”.
Such a move would further isolate the rightwing populist and could provoke “a political reaction of major proportions”, Colon wrote in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper.
But Colon warned that Mandetta’s removal would also be bad news for the health of Brazil’s 209 million citizens.
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