(Rio de Janeiro) The governor of this northeastern state has announced that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will have to pay a fine for unmasked wandering in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in Maranhão.
The left-wing governor Flavio Dino said on Twitter on Friday evening that the health authorities in Maranhão “imposed a fine on the president of the republic who raised gatherings without the slightest health reserve.”
He added that “the law is one for all,” explaining that the decrees in force in Maranhão “prohibit gatherings of more than 100 people and impose wearing masks.”
The amount of the fine will be determined only after the presidency presents its defense, within 15 days.
The applicable law stipulates a fine ranging from 2,000 to 1.5 million riyals (290,000 to 441,000 Canadian dollars).
In response to a question by Agence France-Presse, the presidency did not comment on this issue.
On Friday, Jair Bolsonaro participated in an official ceremony to hand over rural title deeds in Açailandia, 500 kilometers from Sao Luis, the capital of Maranhão.
In this ill case, the first cases of the Indian type were confirmed in Brazil on Thursday, on six crew members who arrived on a cargo ship flying the Hong Kong flag.
Videos posted on President Bolsonaro’s official Twitter account show him in a crowd, unmasked, greeting several hundred people.
In a speech at the ceremony, he described far-right leader Flavio Dino as “a fat little dictator.” He likened him to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but he was wrong about Korea, citing the South Korean leader.
In South Korea, isn’t a dictator a little fat? And in Venezuela, isn’t the dictator a little fat? And who is the fat little dictator here in Maranhão?
Jair Bolsonaro, President of Brazil
President Bolsonaro vehemently opposes any notion of containment, and has repeatedly described rulers as “dictators” who have taken restrictive measures to try to stop the spread of the virus, which has killed more than 440,000 people in Brazil.
A Senate investigation committee is currently examining how the government is handling the health crisis, with a series of irrefutable testimonies in the first three weeks of the hearings.