June 27, 2023

14:06

Ademir Ramos – Special to Cenarium Magazine**

The issue at hand is recurrent in the debates allocated in social networks, focused on analyzing and understanding the political conjuncture of Amazonas as to the power relationship regarding the control of the state, triggered by the Bolsonarism that is present in the electoral political manifestations in Manaus, chancelling certain candidacies for the state parliament, federal parliament and, in attention, to the state government itself, it is the case of Wilson Lima, elected in 2018 and reelected in 2022 for the Amazonas government in the same platform of the candidate Bolsonaro, as a conservative expression of the right-wing parties.

The Bolsonarist movement is a political spark resulting from antipetism, captained by right-wing political forces under the leadership of the then federal deputy, Captain Jair Messias Bolsonaro, elected in 2018 to the presidency of Brazil and defeated in 2022 by the petista, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, when he was seeking reelection for another four years.

With Lula’s return to the presidency of the republic and the possibility of Jair Bolsonaro being convicted in the electoral courts and having his political rights revoked for eight years, the Bolsonaro movement is going through a political rearrangement, putting itself on the side of a certain candidate, be it Bolsonaro or perhaps another emerging from the extreme right-wing conservative bloc, based on the agendas of customs, of military nationalism, of neo-Pentecostal religious values, of predatory agribusiness and the devastation of the Amazon under the logic of capital accumulation that promotes plundering and violation of the fundamental rights of traditional communities and native peoples.

These statements can be seen in the course of actions of the Bolsonarist policies. This means that the movement has a populist character identified with the conservative right wing with an ideological profile marked by the anti-Petist practice, which is often projected as a way to combat communism embodied in the figure of Lula and the leftist parties in Brazil.

The Bolsonarist mantra has had great acceptance among Neo-Pentecostal Christians with the endorsement of pastors and other agents as part of a network of domination and control of leadership centered on the homeland, family, and God above all. The demonization of politics made Bolsonaro a redemptive myth as the practice of messianic populism that would come to save everyone from communism and the fires of hell emanating from a Lulist government violating tradition, family, property and the worship of the altars of the redemptive churches of the Bolsonarist movement.

Lula wins the election in Amazonas, but Bolsonaro was strong in Manaus, which greatly helped the reelection of Governor Wilson Lima. At the moment, analysts are beginning to draw certain scenarios to understand the present and the future of this electoral political phenomenon in view of the municipal elections (2024), with extension to the federal senate, focused on the two seats in dispute, as well as the state government (2026). The questions are the most diverse, however, the certainty we have is that the 2026 elections will go through the Manaus City Hall because the state capital is the largest electoral stronghold of Amazonas.

For these reasons the actors in disputes are tapping in the compass of “two for there, two for here” because there are still no qualified indicators to judge the density of the strength of the Bolsonarist movement in Manaus and what can be done to delay any positioning of a contrary nature to this political faction will be done. On the part of the executive branch, the best response is the impact works with the population and in attention to the immediate demands both in the state capital as well as in other municipalities within the state.

The fact is that yesterday’s bolsorismo is not the same as today’s. Moreover, history also teaches us that outside of power any leadership can fade away into mists and daydreams without a project and a sustaining program. Therefore, it is important that we pay attention to the national political articulations to better understand and evaluate the performance of the local candidacies, considering, above all, the financial power and the quality of the actors in dispute aggregated to a certain popular cause capable of mobilizing the will of the voter, making them believe that work, employment, and income result from a commitment in defense of the Manaus Free Trade Zone, the quality of public policies with security, health, education, housing, and social justice in the capital and other municipalities of our Amazonas.

(*) Ademir Ramos is a professor, anthropologist, coordinator of the Jaraqui Project and of the Nucleus of Political Culture of Amazonas, of the Department of Social Sciences of the Federal University of Amazonas (Ufam). E-mail: [email protected] ()

(*) This content is the author’s responsibility.