8 votes

Jair Bolsonaro’s ‘banana republic’ military parade condemned by critics

2 comments

  1. [2]
    Kuromantis
    (edited )
    Link
    The changes in question are: (Long) Politicians in Brazil have considered changing Brazil's electoral system to SNTV, which is simply a rehashing to First Past the Post applied to multi-member...

    Critics have denounced Jair Bolsonaro’s “banana republic-style” decision to send combat vehicles on to the streets of Brazil’s capital for a rare military parade in what was widely seen as a beleaguered president’s ham-fisted attempt to project strength.

    Bolsonaro, whose ratings have plunged as a result of his chaotic response to the Covid pandemic, looked on from the marble ramp outside the presidential palace as a motorcade of armoured vehicles trundled past on Tuesday morning.

    The hastily arranged parade – which experts said had no precedent in the years since the restoration of democracy in 1985 – was reportedly ordered by Bolsonaro last Friday and came on the same day members of congress were scheduled to vote on highly controversial Bolsonaro-backed plans to change Brazil’s voting system.

    The changes in question are: (Long)

    Politicians in Brazil have considered changing Brazil's electoral system to SNTV, which is simply a rehashing to First Past the Post applied to multi-member districts, which they plan to introduce as a transition to single-member FPTP, according to them to decrease partisanship and 'personalism' (in which case it is quite strange that they would pick one that makes everyone compete as individuals, which definitely makes the latter worse). Whether this is like the USA, the UK, Japan or something else is probably not a question they're keen to answer because all of them will be worse than the proportional voting system Brazil has right now, and their problems with it could probably be more easily fixed by requiring parties getting 3 or so % of votes to get representation like in Germany or NZ.

    Bolsonaro's and other right wingers' desire to see the current digital ballot machines in Brazil be replaced by physical paper ballots woth human counting like in the US, while the left defends the current digital system with memes like this one about how quick our elections are (they do last mere hours like in the meme and 30 minute delays in counting are fairly large roadblocks), which is interesting because it's quite different it is to the partisan voting split in the US, where the main focuses are who has the documentation to vote, how much effort should it take, how much time should it take, etc. and everyone agrees digital systems are untrustworthy if not dangerous. The left and/or center here defend the current system by citing how the machines' code (I think?) Is public and that the parties can observe the system working more closely like in the US.

    It also followed a succession of incendiary and anti-democratic remarks from Brazil’s leader, an authoritarian-minded former army captain who has said next year’s presidential elections may not happen if the changes are not approved.

    Many also regarded the president’s tanqueciata (tank parade) – which lasted only 10 minutes, featured a distinctly limited selection of fume-spewing military hardware, including a single model of Austrian tank, and was attended by only about 100 hardcore Bolsonaro supporters – as a fiasco.

    Here's a video for reference

    Here's a meme about it ("even a broken clock is right twice a day")

    1 vote
    1. imperialismus
      Link Parent
      I don't know much about Brazil or Bolsonaro (the one thing I remember about him is that time he confused the Faroe Islands for Norway when complaining about whaling, as a response to Norway...

      I don't know much about Brazil or Bolsonaro (the one thing I remember about him is that time he confused the Faroe Islands for Norway when complaining about whaling, as a response to Norway pulling economic support for the Amazon rain forest). But I appreciate that meme. Not exactly North Korea style that parade, was it?

      1 vote