The president has achieved the unity of the majority of parties to overcome the assault, but he will have to manage the country with a Parliament dominated by the right
Half of Brazil knew that Lula da Silva’s victory in the presidential elections would not be accepted by Jair Bolsonaro, much less by his far-right supporters. Medio Brasil anticipated that acts of vandalism would take place with the aim of annulling the result of the elections. On the day of Lula’s inauguration, Sunday, January 1, all the security forces and special defense units monitored the act. Just eight days later, the seizure of the main powers in the capital Brasilia took place. With a Parliament with a right-wing majority, with the threat of military friends of Bolsonaro, and with half the country against him, this is the Brazil that Lula has to govern at 77 and after having done so between 2003 and 2010. Will he be able to govern it? ? Will he be able to carry out the reconstruction that he promised? Is the happy Brazil that the president always dreams of possible? Will Lula endure all this opposition? How will he rule? This is the Brazil of today. Nothing happy. Yes, instead, seen with sadness and living with fear in the body.
In the second round of the presidential elections on October 29, Lula da Silva won the right to govern Brazil for the third time with 50.9% of the vote. His rival, Jair Bolsonaro, added 49.1%. Lula was voted for by 60.3 million Brazilians. Bolsonaro, then president, was supported by 58.1 million citizens. Lula represents the left. Bolsonaro, the extreme right. The result made it clear that Brazil is split in two. Losers have not accepted defeat. They consider that the elections were a fraud and live only their truth. They believe that by blocking roads, setting up camps and marching on Brasilia to take over the three main headquarters of the State, in an attempt to overthrow the democratically elected president, they are fighting for the freedom of their country.
Lula had been in power for eight days when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters arrived in buses to Brasilia to prepare their ‘war’. They took the Planalto Palace, seat of the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court of Justice. All of Brazil was warned that the Bolsonaristas were preparing something big. Future ministers in Lula’s cabinet had warned him. The outgoing president, who just a few days ago recognized the victory of his opponent, had justified the blockades and the camps as a form of protest accepted in any democratic country. And the mob, dressed in the uniform of the Brazilian team, waving that flag that speaks of progress and order, entered the three venues breaking windows, destroying material, shouting slogans against the elected president and praising the outgoing president, causing such chaos that could lead to a coup. The police commanders did not exercise their function as they should. Many remained looking the other way, taking selfies, some even making way for the protesters. Lula maintains that even from within they were able to open the doors to the “terrorists” that he has also compared to “Nazists.”
Up to five hours the revolt lasted. The mob was evicted and there were more than a thousand arrests, and the order to lift the camps was immediately carried out. Lula guaranteed the arrest and punishment of the promoters of such an act. Of some 200 who have been questioned, only 34 have admitted to having been financed by ‘farmers’, a very important sector in Brazil. A judge has already blocked assets for 1.2 million euros to those who financed the buses. One of them had a contract with the previous Bolsonaro government.
The plan found at Torres’ house
But the worst thing that the investigation of what happened on Sunday, January 8, has been able to discover so far is that everything was planned in a draft found at the home of Anderson Torres, justice minister in the Bolsonaro government. Torres is also in the United States Like the former president. The draft, published last Friday by most of the Brazilian media, provided for an intervention in the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to change the results of the elections and keep Jair Bolsonaro in power. The current Minister of Justice and Security, Flávio Dino, has announced that he will request the extradition of Torres if he does not appear in Brazil on January 16. It is a relevant document: “Mr. Anderson must, in the exercise of his right of defense, say where the document came from, who produced it, under what circumstances and what his intentions were,” Dino said. At the same time, the names of 46 federal deputies who defended or minimized the terrorist act last Sunday have been known; 33 of them belong to Bolsonaro’s party.
With all this hubbub, Lula seems to have achieved the unity of the majority of parties to defend democracy, but in Parliament he knows that the majority is right-wing. The president, leader of the PT (Workers’ Party), has announced a cleansing of the ministries of the most ill-fated supporters of Bolsonaro: “We have only been in government for 12 days, we have not even finished designating the entire government. So far few have been nominated, we are doing a thorough evaluation. The truth is that the palace was full of Bolsonaristas and the military and we want to replace them with career officials, preferably civilians who were here and were transferred to another department to make it a civilian cabinet, a Presidency of the Republic with more civility than in recent years. four years. No one who is a root Bolsonaro can stay. The one who voted for Bolsonaro and does his job fairly, why can’t he stay? I do not want to make a Palace of the PT, “said the president, who, without a doubt, listens to voices that recommend that his government cannot make the mistake of continuing to trust Bolsonaro authorities.
However, there is an idea that the attempted coup accentuated Bolsonaro’s isolation and that Lula has become stronger with the support of rulers and the international community. Another voice that sees the future of Lula’s government with optimism is that of Mark Mabius, one of the most qualified managers in the industry to invest in emerging markets, in an interview with ‘Folha de Sao Paulo’, he pointed out that “the war of Terror can unite Brazilians around Lula” and ensures that society’s reaction is positive and attractive to investors.
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