Regional Parliaments as Pandemic Stages: Emergencies, Structural Crisis and Antagonisms

Brazil was, at some point, the epicentre of the global pandemic, having reached the excruciating figure of more than 600000 deaths, with peaks of more than 1000 deceased in a day in February and March 2021. The negationist rhetoric of Bolsonaro’s government highly contributed to the sketch of this scenario. The ineffectiveness in the purchase and distribution of vaccines and the propagation of discourses competing with the preventive health measures recommended by world health organisations were integral parts of this extreme right-wing government's performance. The absence of federal coordination against the pandemic made the work of state governments and parliaments very central to the development and application of policies aimed at mitigating the social and economic effects of Covid-19. Against this backdrop, this article proposes an analysis of the federative responses to the pandemic through a case study of the Rio de Janeiro Legislative Assembly (ALERJ). In this case, Rio de Janeiro stands for as a sample of Brazilian politics as one of Bolsonaro’s most relevant electoral wards, where he holds a considerable political and social base. On the other hand, Rio de Janeiro is the state of Marielle Franco, a Black women politician assassinated in 2018 who became a symbol of human rights defenders and an icon of the progressive left in the country. In this sense, at least on the regional spectrum, Rio de Janeiro is a stage on which Brazilian political antagonisms become even more evident. Concerning the Covid-19 pandemic, Rio de Janeiro was the second most affected since it is home to several densely populated metropolitan regions around its capital. Thus, this federal-state represents an interesting microcosm of Brazilian politics and a way of understanding the emerging and structural conflicts that arose from responses to this situation. With this in mind, my focus in this article is to analyse the parliamentary responses to Covid, between February and March 2021, at this particular Legislative House. By responses, I consider the proposed bills related to Covid-19 and the speeches and discussions that cover this agenda. I selected this period because these months were marked by the peak of deaths and infections and the arrival of vaccines on national territory. Employing Covid-19 as a lens, this article aims to answer the following questions: What issues are addressed in parliament with direct or indirect associations to the pandemic? How is the sanitary crisis utilised as a prism to address other structural problems such as the economy, public health and education? What antagonistic articulations are revealed, and how do they relate to the national political context? In answering these questions, I aim to understand what kinds of responses have been given to the pandemic in Rio de Janeiro and what other concerns arise through the pandemic as a rubric. Furthermore, I intend to situate the local debate within the national political context and understand how political/ideological positions are reflected in the legislative actions aimed at giving answers to the crises imposed by the pandemic.