The Washington Post - USA (2020-11-22)

A20 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2020

The World

GUATEMALA

Protesters torch

legislative building

H undreds of protesters broke
into Guatemala’s Congress and
burned part of the building
Saturday amid growing
demonstrations against
President Alejandro Giammattei
and the legislature for
approving a budget that cut
educational and health
spending.
The incident came as about
10,000 people were protesting
in front of the National Palace
in Guatemala City against
corruption and the budget,
which protesters say was p assed
by legislators in secret while the
Central American country was
distracted by the fallout of back-
to-back hurricanes and the
coronavirus pandemic.
About 1,000 protesters were
demonstrating outside the
Congress building.
Video on social media showed
flames shooting out a window in
the legislative building. Police
fired tear gas at protesters, and

about a dozen people were

reported injured.

Giammattei condemned the

fires in his Twitter account

Saturday.

— Reuters

ETHIOPIA

Government turns

down peace effort

T he Ethiopian government on

Saturday rebuffed an effort to

mediate its conflict with rebels,

saying its troops had seized

another town in their march

toward the northern Tigray

region’s capital. Prime Minister

Abiy Ahmed’s government has

said it will soon reach Mekelle,

after taking surrounding towns.

More than two weeks into the

offensive, the government says

Tigrayan forces are bulldozing

roads and destroying bridges to

hold up the advance.

Nonetheless, on Saturday,

government officials said

Adigrat, about 72 miles north of

Mekelle, had fallen.

On Friday, the African Union

bloc appointed former

presidents Joaquim Chissano of

Mozambique, Ellen Johnson

Sirleaf of Liberia and Kgalema

Motlanthe of South Africa as

special envoys to seek a cease-

fire and mediation talks.

— Reuters

ISRAEL

Netanyahu: Pollard

is expected soon

Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu on

Saturday welcomed the lifting of

parole restrictions on Jonathan

Pollard, the former U.S. Navy

analyst convicted of spying for

Israel in the 1980s, saying he

expects him in Israel soon.

In a statement, Netanyahu

said he had worked for Pollard’s

release for many years. He did

not provide a firm date when

Pollard might arrive.

The U.S. Justice Department

announced Friday that Pollard

had completed his parole,

freeing him to move to Israel.

Advocates have said that has

long been Pollard’s wish.

Pollard, as a civilian intelligence

analyst for the U.S. Navy, sold

military secrets to Israel while

working at the Pentagon in the

1980s. He was arrested in 1985

after trying unsuccessfully to

gain asylum at the Israeli

Embassy in Washington.

— Associated Press

India accuses Pakistan of

deadly shelling: An Indian

soldier was killed and another

wounded by Pakistani shelling

along the highly militarized

frontier dividing Kashmir

between the two nuclear-armed

rivals, the Indian army said.

Indian army spokesman Lt. Col.

Devender Anand called the

incident “an unprovoked

violation” of a 2003 cease-fire

accord and said that Indian

troops retaliated. Pakistan did

not comment immediately.

Throng turns out for radical

cleric’s funeral in Pakistan:

Tens of thousands of supporters

assembled for the funeral of

Khadim Hussein Rizvi, a radical

cleric whose Islamist party has

defended Pakistan’s

controversial blasphemy law.

The mourners gathered in the

eastern city of Lahore, where

Rizvi died Thursday at age 54.

Rizvi’s party, Tehreek-e-Labiak,

holds only two seats in

Parliament, but his movement

has repeatedly pressed its cause

by staging large-scale

demonstrations.

Azerbaijani president hopes

for better relations with

Armenia: The president of

Azerbaijan says he hopes the

cease-fire that ended a six-week

war with Armenia this month

will lead to improved relations

between the countries. Ilham

Aliyev made the statement as a

high-level Russian delegation

visited Azerbaijan’s capital,

Baku. The Russian delegation

also visited the Armenian

capital, Yerevan. Russia

negotiated the cease-fire, under

which Azerbaijan is to regain

sizable areas of land that has

been under the control of ethnic

Armenian forces since the

1990s.

French protest planned law

against publishing photos of

police: Thousands of people

took to the streets in Paris and

other French cities at the urging

of civil liberties campaigners

and journalist groups to protest

a proposed security law they say

would impinge on freedom of

information and media rights.

Pending legislation in France’s

Parliament would create a new

criminal offense for publishing

images of police officers with

intent to cause them harm.

Sudan boycotts talks with

Ethiopia on dam: Sudan

boycotted talks between Nile

Valley countries over Ethiopia’s

controversial mega-dam, calling

on the African Union to play a

greater role in pushing forward

negotiations that have stalled

for years. It was the first time

that Sudan refused to attend

talks with Ethiopia and its

northern neighbor Egypt,

which has expressed for years

its fears that the Grand

Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on

the Blue Nile will dramatically

threaten water supplies

downstream.

— From news services

DIGEST

BY TERRENCE MCCOY

rio de janeiro — I t was a mo-
ment when, after so many scan-
dals and broken promises, Brazil
finally seemed on cusp of change.
The sprawling corruption
probe known as Lava Jato had
ensnared scores of politicians in
Brazil and abroad, upending the
Latin American power structure.
The election of Jair Bolsonaro
brought to power an outsider poli-
tician who promised to root out
corruption. And for his justice
minister, he named the anti-cor-
ruption judge who became a Bra-
zilian hero leading the investiga-
tion.
Two years later, that minister,
Sérgio Moro, is out of govern-
ment. The corruption investiga-
tion is on life support. The corona-
virus response has turned into a
graft bonanza. And the president,
who is himself being investigated
by the supreme court for alleged
misconduct, is declaring that pub-
lic malfeasance is no longer an
issue.
“I don’t want to end Lava Jato; I
ended Lava Jato,” Bolsonaro said
last month, shortly before one of
his top congressional allies was
found with wads of cash stuffed
into his underpants. “There isn’t
any more corruption in the gov-
ernment.”
Rather than building on the
momentum established over
years of anti-corruption efforts —
and capitalizing on overwhelm-
ing public support to crack down
on political wrongdoing — Brazil
appears to be regressing in its
quest to stamp out the malfea-
sance.
The gap between the promise
and the reality was made stark
this month when Bolsonaro’s son
Flávio, a senator, was charged
with embezzlement and money
laundering. Rio de Janeiro pros-
ecutors allege that he took public
money meant to pay legislative
aides when he served in the state
assembly. Another son, Carlos, a
Rio city council member, has been
accused of similar behavior. (Both
have denied wrongdoing.)
“Unfortunately, in this presi-
dency, the anti-corruption agenda
has been abandoned,” Moro told
The Washington Post. “This was
one of the principal reasons that I
left.”
In a country where the issue of
corruption has rarely been the top
concern, there is now a sense that
a rare moment has passed and an
opportunity missed. With so
much attention focused on the
coronavirus — which has killed
nearly 170,000 Brazilians and in-
fected more than 6 million — cor-
ruption has receded from the pub-
lic debate.
“We feared that there would be
setbacks,” said Bruno Brandão,
the executive director of Trans-
parency International in Brazil.
“What we are seeing is the confir-
mation of what we had feared, and
not only there are poor advances,
but very serious setbacks. It’s very
concerning and disappointing.”
During the 2018 presidential
campaign, Bolsonaro presented
himself as uniquely positioned to
rid the country of corruption. As a
fringe politician with few legisla-
tive achievements, he had been

too far removed from the coun-

try’s political elite to have been

involved in Brazil’s biggest scan-

dals. He was a member of what’s

called here the “baixo clero” — the

low clergy.

Corruption had never been

central to his political messaging.

He’d been far more concerned

with hailing Brazil’s military dic-

tatorship, taking umbrage with

leftist social policies and making

comments that shocked and of-

fended. But as the campaign ac-

celerated, he echoed the calls to do

away with corruption — and

found an audience.

“The evils and harms of corrup-

tion affect the population in every

way,” he said before the election.

“This is what we want to stop. A

corrupt government stimulates

crime in all areas.”

Then, after his victory, when he

selected Moro — the stone-faced

jurist called the “super-judge” —

to be his justice minister, Brazil-

ians saw proof he was serious. The

so-called l avajatistas, the Brazil-

ians most keen on ending corrup-

tion, formed one of the largest and

most durable segments of his po-

litical base.

“He had the anti-corruption

flag, even if he was not an anti-cor-

ruption politician,” said Alexan-

dre Bandeira, a political analyst in

Brasilia. “It was the right politics

in the right moment.”

When Moro resigned in April,

he accused Bolsonaro of miscon-

duct. He said the president had

tried to replace a police chief in

Rio de Janeiro to potentially block

investigations into his family and

friends. The supreme court is in-

vestigating the allegations.

Moro, widely considered a

leading challenger to Bolsonaro

in the 2022 presidential election,

said he left feeling disappointed.

When he came into office, he said

he recognized anti-corruption ef-

forts as “essential, given Brazil’s

recent history.”

At the time, “there was a per-

spective that the elected president

would have a posture more con-

sidered than when his traditional

posture as a congressman,” he

said. But that didn’t happened, he

said. Bolsonaro “has given a bad

example, not only by his dis-

course, but his actions, his move-

ments.”

Bolsonaro’s office didn’t re-

spond to multiple requests for

comment.

The abdication of the anti-cor-

ruption mantle risks damaging

Bolsonaro’s political support at a

time when he appears increasing-

ly vulnerable. Recent research

suggests his erratic behavior dur-

ing the pandemic — which he has

minimized at every turn — has

taken a political toll. Some of his

2018 voters have turned against

him. Many of the candidates he

supported in l ast week’s munici-

pal elections lost.

Bolsonaro’s approval ratings

have risen in recent months,

buoyed by growing popularity

among the poor. But political ana-

lysts warn that the support is

tenuous. The country, which has

been pumping money into the

pockets of the poorest to offset the

coronavirus economic fallout, will

not be paying the benefit indefi-

nitely.

Esther Solano, a sociologist

with the Federal University of São

Paulo, has spent years interview-

ing Bolsonaro supporters. She

said the corruption scandals

won’t shake the support among

the most faithful. They’ll see Bol-

sonaro as a victim of political

persecution.

Or they will “relativize” the

scandals, s aid Nara Pavão, a politi-

cal scientist at Federal University

of Pernambuco. “Many people will

think, ‘What he’s doing is nothing

compared to what the last govern-

ment did.’ We have a lot of empiri-

cal evidence of this.”

But reactions could be different

among his more moderate follow-

ers, Solano said. They initially

supported Bolsonaro not for his

ideology but because he promised

to address the country’s most

pressing issues.

“For the more moderate, these

corruption allegations are being

paid attention to, and it’s having a

negative impact on Bolsonaro’s

image,” Solano said. “His middle-

class voters are very disappointed

with the departure of Sérgio

Moro.”

It’s increasingly clear, analysts

say, that the platform Bolsonaro

ran on in 2018 will not be available

to him for the next presidential

campaign in 2022. Unable to posi-

tion himself as an anti-corruption

outsider, he’ll need to find a new

base of support — perhaps among

the poor, if he can find a way to

continue or widen the social safe-

ty net.

“If Bolsonaro is reelected or

not, it will have to be another story

for him and his base,” Bandeira

said. “He will need to transition.”

[email protected]

Heloísa Traiano contributed to this

report.

Bolsonaro ran against corruption. Time for a new slogan.

Brazil’s p resident, his

sons and his allies are

under investigation for

alleged misconduct

ANDRE BORGES/GETTY IMAGES

SILVIA IZQUIERDO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

TOP: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro attends an event for Aviator and Brazilian Air Force Day last

month in Brasilia. ABOVE: Judge Sérgio Moro, center, accompanied by federal police, talks to media

members after leaving a meeting with Bolsonaro outside Bolsonaro’s Rio de Janeiro home in 2018.