May 2, 2022

09:05

Priscilla Peixoto – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – This May 1, Labor Day, supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) will take to the streets in several cities in the country to hold the motociata entitled “In defense of freedom”. In Manaus, the initiative is scheduled to take place from 16h, starting at Bola do Produtor, East Zone of Manaus, bound for Ponta Negra, located in the West Zone of the capital.

According to the organizer and leader of the Conservative Movement Amazonas, Sergio Kruke, the act focuses on supporting Bolsonaro’s decision to grant a pardon to federal lawmaker Daniel Silveira, after he was sentenced by the Supreme Court (STF) to eight years and nine months in prison for anti-democratic acts.

“Today’s event is an act for freedom in support of the president who has been acting for our freedoms. We know that we have some STF ministers there persecuting conservatives. Daniel Silveira is a parliamentarian who was arrested because he spoke in a video, and it doesn’t matter what he said, because he is immune from any punishment, according to the Constitution, but he ended up being targeted by ministers of the Supreme Court who tore up the Constitution. And this act is in support of the president, in this sense”, explains Sérgio.

Free Trade Zone

The rally in support of Bolsonaro, happens three days after the president signed two decrees that remove the competitiveness of the Manaus Free Trade Zone. Jair Bolsonaro extended to 35% the reduction of the IPI rate and changed the Tables of Incidence on Industrialized Products (TIPI) for processes of non-alcoholic beverages. The measure directly affects the Concentrates Pole of the Manaus Free Trade Zone.

When asked about the issue, the leader of the Amazonas Conservative Movement affirms that the State’s economic matrix needs changes. According to Sergio, the agenda about the attack suffered by the ZFM happens because it is raised every year and nothing is done to effectively improve the economic part of the State of Amazonas.

“As for IPI and the Manaus Free Trade Zone, our position is that we have to change this economic matrix. We have career politicians that every year address the same ‘litany’ and nothing is done. The Free Trade Zone, today, solves the problem of only 10% of the population of Amazonas, the other 90% has to face environmental policies that prohibit fishing, extractivism in our forests, and that we can enjoy our mineral wealth, while day after day we are robbed by foreign NGOs”, analyzes Sérgio.

Promises to be kept

The organizer of the movement also highlights the recent meeting between governor Wilson Lima and Bolsonaro. On the occasion, held last Wednesday, 27, at the Palácio do Planalto, in Brasilia, Wilson Lima was with the president of the Republic to address the reissue of Federal Decree 11.047/2022 that threatens the more than 100 thousand jobs in the Manaus Free Trade Zone (MFTZ).

Bolsonaro pledged to find a way to maintain the competitiveness of the ZFM against the decree that reduced the Tax on Industrialized Products (IPI), until then, by 25% throughout the country. Sergio believes that Bolsonaro’s promise will be kept, even after successive unexpected measures against the Free Trade Zone.

“He is taking 35% of the taxes off the backs of Brazilians and this is, yes, affecting the Free Trade Zone. We have to analyze all this to reach the common denominator. He said in a meeting with the governor that he would restore this damage to the FTZ, then, we are waiting because everything he promises he fulfills, “he concludes.