Elections 2022: Moro’s inexperience harms Amazon and worries experts

Marcela Leiros – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The articulations around the presidential dispute for the election of 2022 start to move the national politics, and the Amazon should be in the candidates’ agenda. One of them is the former judge and former Minister of Justice Sergio Moro, who returned to Brazil on Monday, 1, to, according to the national press, start the pre-campaign political movement. CENARIUM talked to experts in economics and politics about what to expect from the candidate on issues related to the largest region in the country, since Moro’s lack of experience in public management is a cause for concern.

Moro was Minister of Justice in Jair Bolsonaro’s (No Party) government. He left the position in April last year, after accusing Bolsonaro of trying to interfere in the direction of the Federal Police, subordinated to the Ministry of Justice and Public Safety (MJSP). The former judge went to work as a consultant for a company in the United States, a position he ended at the end of October this year. In Brazil, he is expected to join Podemos on Wednesday, October 10.

The political scientist Carlos Santiago analyzes that the future candidates do not seem to have solid answers for Brazil’s problems, both in the socioeconomic sphere (with the high inflation and the increase in food insecurity, for example) and in sustainable development. For him, Moro’s profile is of someone with no experience in public management and who, therefore, may face “enormous difficulties in understanding and giving the Amazon its due importance”.

“It is absurd that in the middle of the electoral process, the Amazon is not high on the agenda of the federal government and the pre-candidates. It is much easier to find, outside Brazil, debates about the importance of the Amazon. Candidates like Sergio Moro and others, with their bureaucratic, insensitive profile, will hardly understand the Amazon”, highlights the specialist.

Brazil has been highlighted internationally for its lack of governance in confronting environmental crimes, such as the illegal deforestation of the biomes, especially the Amazon. Historic records of loss of natural vegetation are reached almost monthly, an environmental problem that needs a national and effective policy for the region. These are some of the problems that will have to be faced by the future president of the Republic.

“Neither the current president of the Republic nor his opponents have indicated ways or proposals to solve the great dilemmas and conflicts in the Amazon, which involve traditional communities, the indigenous issue, borders, land tenure, fires, and the search for sustainable development that respects the cultural and environmental diversity of the region”, highlights Santiago.

Fighting corruption

The coordinating professor of the Center for Political Culture – Social Sciences, the Federal University of Amazonas (Ufam), Ademir Ramos, points out that the Moro flag is guided by the fight against corruption, but that this “old flag” has already been raised in previous governments, as the former president Fernando Collor de Mello – with the “hunting the maharajas” – and the Bolsonaro himself.

“This is an old posture that, in fact, does not prosper, because who fights corruption is not the Executive, but the Judiciary and the Executive. If he comes with this discourse of fighting corruption, it will be undermined, it will not prosper, for sure, because, in fact, he is not from the (political) field, he is from the legal field, and what he did was exactly that with the Lava Jato issue”, highlights the professor.

Regarding the formulation of proposals related to the Amazon, the professor reiterates scientist Carlos Santiago’s analysis about there being “no possibility” of Moro giving special attention to the Amazon, but that the former judge’s dispute, in the election, is important to become one more option to Brazilians.

“About the Amazon is an innocuous proposal, I don’t even know if he has a proposal. There is not much hope from this perspective. I think his presence in the political dispute is important, because it gives the elector more alternatives to choose from”, he highlights.

Amazon economy

The region’s economy is also viewed with concern by experts, since economic development is directly related to sustainable development, appreciation of culture, and attention to traditional peoples and biodiversity. A “good advisory” in scientific and environmental areas are options for Moro to stand out in the electoral campaign.

“The challenge will consist in how to reconcile the occupation already made, of the region, with the recent needs, environmental and reinsertion in the global value chains”, highlights the professor of the Department of Economics and Analysis of Ufam, Mauro Thury de Vieira Sá. “If he shows himself willing to recompose the apparatus relative to the environment, within a constitutional character, perhaps he will transmit more security under the international prism. It remains to be seen how, internationally, it will be seen, due to ‘Vaza Jato’.

CENARIUM tried to contact Podemos, through the regional president of the acronym, Congressman Abdala Fraxe, about what expectations can be expected from Sergio Moro’s candidacy to the party. However, we did not receive a reply as of the publication of this article.