Jair Bolsonaro raises fears for Brazil’s democratic system by threatening to appoint new judges to the Supreme Court, the central institution of the country’s democracy. Between the two electoral rounds, Bolsonaro is giving a rudder on the subject, making threats to galvanize his base, and then backing down to reassure the undecided. However, if he is re-elected, the far-right president could find the numbers to make changes to the court.
The outcome of the tight race between Bolsonaro and former Social Democrat President Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva is difficult to predict ahead of the second round of Brazil’s presidential election on Oct. 30.
After obtaining 48% of the votes in the first round, on October 2, ‘Lula’ began to try to get closer to evangelical Christians and centrists in an attempt to overcome his far-right rival. The current president, for his part, obtained a much better result than expected, with 43 percent, and is more certain than ever that he will be reelected.
Since the first round, Bolsonaro has alternated a presidential position with well-calculated outbursts, a strategy that has played well among his far-right and anti-system base. This includes fierce rhetoric about the Brazilian Supreme Court.
Surrounded by journalists in the reception room of the presidential palace in Brasilia, Bolsonaro launched into controversy on October 7. He accused the press of supporting ‘Lula’, and then ranted against the judges of the Supreme Court, calling one of them, the president, Alexandre de Moraes, a “dictator”.
The dispute between Bolsonaro and de Moraes dates back to 2021, when the judge ordered the president investigated for “disinformation” after Bolsonaro questioned the integrity of the electronic voting system that Brazil has used since the 1990s.
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro told reporters that he had been “suggested” to increase the number of judges on the Supreme Court. “I’ve got people telling me, ‘You just have to name five more,'” he said. “I can’t name five more. First we have to talk about it in Parliament. We’ll see after the elections.”
Following Bolsonaro’s comments, his vice president Hamilton Mourão also said that changes should be made to the Supreme Court, both in its composition and in its mandate, claiming that it is an “autocratic decision-making system.”
Guardian of the Constitution
Brazil’s highest court, the Supreme Court, is the guardian of the country’s Constitution and its decisions are final. Its 11 judges are appointed for life by the Brazilian president and must retire at age 75.
Currently, the court has seven judges appointed by ‘Lula’ and his left-wing successor Dilma Rousseff, two appointed by center-right presidents and two appointed by Bolsonaro during his term. Whoever wins the presidential elections will appoint at least two judges.
By saying he wants to change the composition of the Supreme Court, Bolsonaro is following in the footsteps of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. The generals appointed five more judges to the court, making it more pliable without actually abolishing it, thus maintaining a veneer of functioning democratic institutions.
After Bolsonaro’s incendiary remarks sparked unrest, he attempted to strike a more moderate tone on October 9. During a four-hour conversation with a youtuberBolsonaro seemed relaxed and smiled often, while wearing the jersey of the beloved Brazil soccer team. He said that if the Supreme Court “cools off” his attacks on him, he could abandon his plan to appoint new justices, allowing him to get a bench majority to support him during a potential second term.
A widely used tactic
Bolsonaro is using one of his usual tactics, noted Armelle Enders, a historian of contemporary Brazil at Paris 8 University: “Part of his modus operandi It consists of threatening and then backing down. First, he threatens to embolden his base – the hard core of his supporters – and then he backs off because he knows that making comments that suggest he wants a coup is bad for his ratings.” Backing down, Bolsonaro normalizes again, reassuring many who harbor reservations about him.
The far-right president played a dangerous game along these lines in September 2021. He called on his supporters to gather inside the Supreme Court in Brasilia, before asking them to remain calm as they responded to his call en masse.
“Bolsonaro’s practice is to threaten institutions and ignore them. For him there are no institutions, only friends and enemies,” Enders said. “That said, the Supreme Court hasn’t bothered Bolsonaro much during his tenure. It hasn’t stopped him from doing anything of substance that he wanted to do. But the way Bolsonaro and his supporters see the world, it’s politicized because it doesn’t support Bolsonaro’s agenda.” , which makes him one of his enemies.”
A majority to change the court?
The current episode with the Supreme Court once again demonstrates Bolsonaro’s ability to flirt with criticism of Brazil’s democratic system without tending to cross a line. During the almost four years of his management, the president has allowed himself to threaten, invoke and outrage, and then (sometimes) refute. The far-right Brazilian president has proven to be a master of this tactic, no doubt inspired by former US President Donald Trump.
The candidates supported by Bolsonaro did very well in Brazil’s parliamentary elections held on the same day as the first round of presidential elections. This may give Bolsonaro the majority he needs to change the Constitution and therefore the composition of the Supreme Court.
The Liberal Party to which Bolsonaro is affiliated won 99 of the 513 seats, the best result for a single Brazilian party since 1998. Adding the seats won by the Progressive Party and the Republicans – two other parties that staunchly support Bolsonaro – the number definitively in his field it ascends to 190, more than a third of the total of deputies. In the Senate, the right-wing parties have 53% of the seats; Bolsonaro’s party has 13 of the 81 seats.
So, based on those numbers, it is possible that Bolsonaro will find enough votes to carry out his threats. “The biggest risk for democracy in a second Bolsonaro term is that he puts more pressure on the judiciary,” said Oliver Stuenkel, a professor of international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo.
*This article is an adaptation of its original in French
#Bolsonaros #victory #jeopardize #independence #Brazilian #Supreme #Court