Brazil sinks into negativism, militarization, anti-scientism, religious fundamentalism, disinformation, impoverishment, destruction of rights and militia activity.
The moving average of deaths in the country over the past seven days has broken a record and reached 1,645 people.
The country’s free fall comes from the indictment without crime under the responsibility of Dilma Rousseff, a coup d’état under institutional cover.
The election of Jair Bolsonaro, a notorious defender of military dictatorship and torture, accelerated the implosion, in part because it was part of his political project, in part because of managerial incompetence.
In this context, the return to the political scene of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva completely changes the Brazilian political landscape.
The cancellation of Lula’s processes
On March 8, Minister Edson Fachin of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) ruled that then-judge Sergio Moro and Federal Judge of Paraná did not have jurisdiction to adjudicate cases in which the former president Lula was sentenced – these cases will have their merits analyzed by the Federal Court of the Federal District.
Thus, the convictions were overturned and Lula is no longer ineligible. The STF also judges Moro’s suspicions, that is, whether he was biased.
An investigation by the Ipec Institute, questioning the possibility of voting for ten potential presidential candidates and the level of rejection of each of them, indicates that Lula has the greatest potential for victory.
Lula, who left the government with 87% popularity, was later arrested and saw a negative image of his honesty grow in the population, now resurfacing as an anti-Bolsonaro.
As STF Minister Gilmar Mendes recently acknowledged, Lula’s conviction for corruption and money laundering was a flawed process.
The period chosen for the investigation was when the Workers’ Party (PT) was in government, despite evidence that corruption at Petrobras and subcontractors had started decades earlier.
Shadows of Operation Car Wash
Instead of being an impartial judge, ex-judge Sergio Moro devised a strategy to convict Lula.
In full institutional perversion, the prosecutors of Operation Lava Jato were instructed by him on how to act. They formed a curious team in which the judge was the head of the prosecution.
Columnist Gaspard Estrada was adamant about Lava Jato in The New York Times: “It was sold as the biggest anti-corruption operation in the world, but it became the biggest legal scandal in Brazilian history.
As true as it is ironic, given that Lava Jato’s whimsical account was precisely that Lula and the PT led the biggest corruption scandal in Brazilian history.
However, the operation only emerged with the scandal known as Vaza Jato: a series of reporting that began in 2019, when the news site The Intercept Brasil gained access to private conversations about it. Telegram application involving prosecutors from Lava Jato and Moro.
Along with the material, reports were made showing the political persecution of the operation and even the private economic interests of its operators.
The Intercept scoop was completed when federal police arrested hackers suspected of hacking Moro’s cell phones, prosecutors and other officials.
There have been other outrageous messages exchanged between the judge and prosecutors which STF Minister Ricardo Lewandowski has allowed Lula’s defense to access. Only one STF minister voted against this authorization: Fachin.
The conviction undermined the 2018 presidential election, which placed Bolsonaro as head of the federal government.
Since 2016, Lula has led the voting intentions, with around 15 percentage points above second place. By mid-2017, Bolsonaro was already in second place. Both in an ascendant, with no third placed threatening this polarization.
When Fernando Haddad replaced Lula as candidate, a month before the election, he had 6% of the intention to vote, against 39% of Lula 13 days earlier. Still, he reached the second round, but lost.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Lula’s political imprisonment led to a pocket victory. As a prize, Bolsonaro appointed Moro Minister of Justice.
The prosecutor who led Operation Lava Jato at the Paraná Public Prosecutor’s Office, Deltan Dallagnol, made public at a press conference in 2016 his accusation with an amateur slide in which Lula appeared as the leader of a gang.
At the time, Dallagnol claimed to have “the conviction” that Lula was a criminal, while his colleague Henrique Pozzobon admitted that they had “no hard evidence”.
When Moro condemned Lula, it was fundamentally based on award-winning statements. There is conviction for owning properties that are not in the name of the PT, and their relationship to bribes involving Petrobras contracts is not proven.
In the winning claims, the criminals get advantages, as they do not need to return some of the bribery money until they have eased their imprisonment, in return for exposing suspected accomplices.
Not only can such an exchange take on an air of blackmail, but it would be necessary to obtain concrete evidence to confirm the accusations.
During conversations on Telegram, Dallagnol mocked that the channel’s poor conditions would lead to Aldemir Bendine, former chairman of Petrobras and Banco do Brasil, to cooperate in the winning plea.
Gilmar Mendes of STF said in 2019 that “today it is very clear that they used the temporary prison as an element of torture. It shows up in the statements on the Intercept website, made by people like Dallagnol and Moro ”.
The 2016 indictment without a crime
When Dilma Rousseff was overthrown, the STF considered indictment without felony legal, refraining from defending the substance of the Constitution and merely observing that the rites were followed by the legislature.
Opponents of the coup still remember that those who wanted to remove the PT from power in an anti-democratic way had collaborated with the STF.
Long before Vaza Jato, this was suggested in a dialogue by the senator – after the minister of Michel Temer – Romero Jucá with Sergio Machado, president of Transpetro.
Jucá revealed a conversation with “some ministers of the Supreme”, who would say that with Dilma there would be no stabilization. Machado noted that “the simplest solution” would be Temer to assume the presidency, “in a great national agreement”, in which Jucá added: “With the Supreme, with everything”.
The Supreme Court was divided over whether to condemn or support Lava Jato’s abuses.
In 2016, referring to STF Minister Luiz Fux, Dallagnol informed prosecutors on Telegram: “Dear, I spoke to Fux again, today. Reserved, of course. […] I told you to count on him for whatever we need.
Moro commented to Dallagnol: “In Fux we trust”. In 2015, Dallagnol met Fachin and celebrated with other lawyers: “Aha, uhu, Fachin is ours.”
Lula’s return and the start of a new chapter
Now that Fachin has put Lula back in the game, interpretations abound as to why a Lavajatista like him made such a decision: Did he just avoid his future Supreme Court defeat, try to save Moro and Lava Jato? , or do you believe Lula will be sentenced in the Federal District?
Anyway, now the climate is different: Lula is not cornered, Bolsonaro is losing popularity and Lava Jato is discredited.
In the 2018 undemocratic elections, without Lula and with false news, Brazil, driven by antipetism, chose fascism. Today, despite the impressive resilience of nearly a third of Brazilians loyal to the fascist project, there is a new chance.
For those who survive the pandemic.