Brazil After Bolsonaro
After the insurrection, the nation’s Republicano lawmakers are distancing themselves from the former president—and looking for their next leader.
APRIL 11, 2023
Marcos Pereira, the president of the Brazilian Republicanos party and a strong supporter of Jair Bolsonaro, was in his apartment in São Paulo on Sunday, January 8. He was sitting next to his wife and watching a show on YouTube. At some point, Pereira flicked through his cellphone and got a shock: Brasília, Brazil’s capital city, was entering a trance. Thousands of Bolsonaro supporters were attacking the Praça dos Três Poderes (Three Powers Plaza), which houses the Presidential Palace, the National Congress of Brazil and the Supreme Federal Court. Mesmerized, he jumped from livestream to livestream, watching the crowd unleash destruction never before seen in the houses of government. At 4:33 p.m., he addressed the rioters on Twitter: “The acts of vandalism occurring today in Brasília are condemnable in all respects. We, the Republicanos, reject any demonstration that exceeds democratic limits, whether from the right or the left.”
His disapproval and repudiation were restrained. But they provoked many reactions on social media. Pereira is not only president of the Republicanos but has also been licensed as a bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a huge and influential evangelical group that actively supported Bolsonaro’s reelection.
Two days later, I met Pereira in his office in Lago Sul, Brasília. He had just expelled a member of the Republicanos: a businessman who owned one of the buses that carried Bolsonarists to the coup attempt. In an article, he justified the expulsion by saying, “The party must expel all members found to have participated in the destruction, which exceeded the limits of peaceful democratic demonstration.” When we met in his Lago Sul office, Pereira made a point to tell me that the vandalism of the coup attempt did not represent the Brazilian right. “It is the extreme right,” he said. “The right, the center-right, is going to have to organize and reorganize, to show society we are not radicals of the kind that committed those acts.” Without being asked about the next step, he went on: “And we must seek a new leader.”
The majority said they believed that Bolsonaro, who was out of the country during the coup attempt itself, had dug himself into a hole he’ll have a hard time getting out of. Many were already floating names for new leaders on the right.
In the days immediately following the coup attempt, I spoke with more than 20 members of Brazil’s Congress, most of them on the right. The majority said they believed that Bolsonaro, who was out of the country during the coup attempt itself, had dug himself into a hole he’ll have a hard time getting out of. Many were already floating names for new leaders on the right.
[Read: Cleaning Up the Insurrection]
When Bolsonaro left the presidency, four charges had been filed against him in the Supreme Federal Court. He is under investigation for spreading lies about the electoral process and the voting machines, for interfering with the police to protect his family and allies, for leaking secret information from police investigations, and for crimes against public health during the pandemic. Only a few months after his October election loss, he had already racked up another charge: encouraging those who attempted the coup. Suspicions began two days after the January riot, when Bolsonaro posted a video on social media in which a prosecutor from Mato Grosso do Sul, Felipe Marcelo Gimenez, declared that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had not been elected but was “chosen by the electoral authorities and by justices of the Supreme Federal Court and the Superior Electoral Court.” Bolsonaro took down the video three hours later, but by then it was already widely circulating. After three months in the United States, Bolsonaro returned to Brazil on March 30, smaller and troubled
Bolsonaro’s legal situation — already complicated — got worse when agents from the Federal Police searched the home of his former Minister of Justice and Public Security Anderson Torres. There, they found the draft of a presidential decree in a closet. The three-page document set out a list of justifications for the order that would in theory turn the tables on the election: It would permit a revision of the October election, won by Lula, with the objective of throwing out the results and keeping Bolsonaro in power. The decree also sought to create a “Commission for Electoral Integrity,” composed of 15 members. Among them, 12 would be appointed by the executive branch. After it was discovered, the draft decree became known colloquially as the “draft of the coup.”
The discovery offered the clearest proof to date of the intentions of Bolsonaro and his allies. Torres, who after serving two years as Secretary of Public Security of the Federal District by Gov. Ibaneis Rocha was nominated by Bolsonaro for the post of Minister of Justice and Public Security, was dismissed after the criminal actions of the Bolsonarists in Brasília. Torres has been imprisoned since January 14 for omissions in the chain of command that allowed the vandalization of the three government buildings. In posts to social networks, he said the coup draft had been given to him by someone whom he did not identify, and that he had intended to destroy it. Hard-line Bolsonarists feared that he would give out names and agree to a plea bargain. So far, in his first statements to the police, Torres has not pleaded guilty or blamed Bolsonaro. In Congress, the discovery of the draft decree had a tornado effect. Bolsonaro’s allies claimed the document did not carry any fingerprints of the former president, while his adversaries maintained that it linked him to the destruction. In the Supreme Federal Court, the draft of the coup left Bolsonaro’s situation even more delicate. “It does not reveal good intentions about the preservation of the parameters of democracy,” said Gilmar Mendes, a justice of the Supreme Federal Court, in an interview with journalist Renata Lo Prete, of “Jornal da Globo.” The justice mentioned Bolsonaro’s record of attacks on Congress and the Supreme Federal Court, the two Independence Day military parades, the threats, the provocations. “All of that forms part of that broth of culture that produced January 8, what I called the ‘day of the scandal.’”
After the destruction, two questions have come to loom over the Brazilian political world. The first: Is it premature to consider Bolsonaro ineligible as a candidate for president?…The second question: Without the former president, will the extreme right lose steam?
Far-right politician Luciano Bivar, one of the first politicians in a leadership position on the Brazilian right to break with Bolsonaro — before the uprising — has gloomy predictions for the ex-president. “The best case for him will be ineligibility,” he said. “I have no doubts he will be ineligible.” Bivar previously supported Bolsonaro. Now he believes that Bolsonaro has reached the end of the line. “Bolsonarism, as a political vehicle, showed its face,” said Bivar, already granting himself permission to refer to Bolsonaro’s political movement in past tense. “It did not represent the 50 million people who voted for it. Bolsonarism was a radical nucleus that used those people for an extreme anti-democratic project.”
To make his legal situation even worse, Bolsonaro started facing a new criminal investigation in March. Federal police and prosecutors are investigating whether he tried to sneak two sets of expensive diamond jewelry — gifts from Saudi Arabia — into Brazil without paying taxes, for personal gain instead of incorporating the items into the presidency’s public collection as required by law. Authorities are also looking into whether he enlisted public officials to try to bypass customs. The newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo first reported the case in early March. Bolsonaro attended the Federal Police building on April 5 to testify in this case, arguing that he is innocent.
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After the destruction, two questions have come to loom over the Brazilian political world. The first: Is it premature to consider Bolsonaro ineligible as a candidate for president?
Among the Bolsonarists, calculations of extreme pragmatism are already underway. Within Bolsonaro’s Partido Liberal (Liberal Party) itself, few doubt that Bolsonaro will lose his political right to stand for office. But they believe the ex-president will continue as a leader with strong popular support, no matter his legal future. As such, he will still be able to contribute what most interests the parties that orbit the extreme right: a decisive source of voter turnout. His former chief of staff Ciro Nogueira, president of the powerful Progressistas party, said in an interview in early April, “I will be very frank: It is easier for Bolsonaro, as a victim of injustice, to elect a new president than to win the election himself in 2026.”
The second question: Without the former president, will the extreme right lose steam?
By April, 1,390 people have been charged with crimes related to the coup attempt. Within this total, law enforcement authorities charged 239 for active participation in the destruction, 1,150 who joined the mob or incited vandalism but did not inflict harm, and one for alleged oversight in handling public agents. (It is estimated that of the 20,000 people in the mob, 4,000 participated in vandalism.) Among the financial backers of the motorcades of the coup, 52 people and seven companies were identified in the first weeks, and 18.5 million reais were set aside by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security to guarantee compensation from the public treasury for what was destroyed.
Senate leadership believes that a trial will open in the Council of Ethics and Parliamentary Behavior, which is “responsible for disciplinary measures when a member breaches rules related to its ethical behavior,” and Bolsonaro will be denounced in the International Criminal Court, where the Senate has already sought to accuse him of crimes against humanity for his handling of the pandemic. “The legislative branch must give an example and be the first to hold responsible any member of Congress who, as can be proven, agitated against democracy,” said President of the Senate Rodrigo Pacheco, a member of the Social Democratic Party. He added: “I believe ex-president Jair Bolsonaro should also concentrate his efforts on making peace in the country. The legitimacy of the elections, the result of the elections, those are all outdated matters.” Senator Soraya Thronicke, a member of the center-right party União Brasil (Brazil Unity) who placed fifth in the presidential race, told me: “If someone has committed a crime, it doesn’t matter on which side, he should know he is going to answer for it. Simple as that.”
There are sectors of society intoxicated with the extreme right. It is estimated that at least 15 percent of the electorate are dyed-in-the-wool adherents of Bolsonarist fanaticism.
But the reality is not so simple. Some Bolsonarists are betting on there being no punishment for Congress members who were involved in the coup attempt. “If you were on the front line and breaking windowpanes or invading buildings of power, yes, but we have to consider the behavior on an individual level,” said Delegado Waldir, who was a federal deputy until January. He said he did not believe that his former colleagues in Congress would punish deputies or senators. “If there is some punishment, it will have to come from the Supreme Court,” he said.
Even so, it is easier to isolate the extreme right within Congress than outside it. In the government, Bolsonarism fills out broad sectors of public administration, especially in the areas of intelligence and security. There are sectors of society intoxicated with the extreme right. It is estimated that at least 15 percent of the electorate are dyed-in-the-wool adherents of Bolsonarist fanaticism. For that reason, the weakening of Bolsonaro might not be synonymous with the weakening of the extreme right.
Letícia Cesarino, a professor in the department of anthropology at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, said she believes that extremism on the right remains as strong as ever. She highlighted the difference between the effects of the riotous coup attempt in official party politics and in the broader “social field,” where social networks and the Bolsonarist media are situated. “I would not bet on a weakening of Bolsonarist influence in the metapolitical field,” she said. “Maybe even the opposite.” She went on: “I consider it very difficult to deradicalize the radicalized. They can be watered down, dispersed for a time, but the force will always be latent and ready to be mobilized, even offline.”
Marcos Nobre, president of the Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP) and a professor of philosophy at the State University of Campinas, argued that there is a division among extremists. One side wagers the authoritarian project will be able to achieve a victory in the presidential election of 2026 or even before that, toppling Lula by way of impeachment. This side seeks a path to power within institutions. The other side, composed of the riotous mob of January 8, wants to stage another coup. For that reason, the Lula government needs to work hard to wall off the extreme right in internal conflict, returning hegemony of the ideological field to the democratic right. “It is necessary to bring the people back to democracy,” Nobre said.
To fulfill that historic task, Lula’s Partido de los Trabajadores (Labor Party) will have to address a recurrent, unresolved question: the role the military should have in Brazilian public life.
The military police have become a central subject in Brazilian society after January 8. One of the videos of the invasion of the presidential palace shows the commander of the Presidential Guard, Col. Paulo Jorge Fernandes da Hora, arguing with members of the Military Police’s shock troops to stop them from arresting the rioters ransacking the palace. There he acted as an agent not of order but of the riot. The case is under investigation. The Presidential Guard, which defends the presidential palaces, has about 1,000 soldiers at its disposal but was not even deployed on the day of the coup attempt, and not for lack of warning.
Right before the protesters stormed the Praça dos Três Poderes, the Brazilian Intelligence Agency sent out seven alerts to 48 different governmental bodies. The first alert was made at 7:40 p.m. on Friday, January 6. The last was published at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 8, shortly before the start of the riot in Brasília. The warnings were clear about a risk of violence:
—7:40 p.m. on Friday, January 6: “The level of support for the protests against election results held in Brasília on the days 7, 8 and 9 of January remains low. Even so, there is risk of violent actions against public buildings and authorities. There is a notable risk of an assembly by the organizers of motorcades for the transfer of demonstrators with access to arms and the clear intention to invade the National Congress. Other buildings in the Esplanade of the Ministries could be the target of violent actions.”
—10:30 a.m. on Saturday, January 7: “In Brasília, army headquarters noted the arrival of 18 buses from other states to participate in protests. Calls to violent action and attempts at occupation of public buildings continue, mainly in the Esplanade of the Ministries.”
—12 p.m.: “In agreement with ANTT [an agency that organizes land transport all over the country] there was an increase in the number of buses hired toward Brasília for this weekend. There is a total of 105 buses with around 3,900 passengers. Calls to violent action and attempts at occupation of public buildings continue, principally in the Esplanade of the Ministries.”
—3:40 p.m.: “In Brasília, the arrival of demonstrators to the army barracks continues. Roads in the area are blocked to vehicles. There is a small group of demonstrators in the Esplanade of the Ministries, near the Alameda das Bandeiras. Eixo Monumental [the Monumental Axis, the main avenue in Brasília] is blocked to vehicles until the National Library. There have been no registered incidents.”
—4:50 p.m.: “In Brasília, the arrival of demonstrators to the army barracks continues. There is no register of the actions of demonstrators outside the army barracks. There have been continued calls for movement toward the Esplanade of the Ministries, occupations of public buildings and violent actions, but without concrete coordination of these actions.”
—10:30 a.m. Sunday, January 8: “In Brasília, demonstrators continue to arrive to the army barracks but in a lesser flow than registered yesterday. There was a significant increase in the number of tents from yesterday to today, with installations of even larger structures. There have been continued calls for movement toward the Esplanade of the Ministries, occupations of public buildings and violent actions. In a vote, protesters decided the march would only begin when all of the motorcades have arrived, and avoid disclosing a time for the start. There is a small group of demonstrators in the Avenida das Bandeiras.”
—1:30 p.m.: “In Brasília, a group of demonstrators began to march from the army barracks in the direction of the Esplanade of the Ministries. They occupy two bands of the N1 [roadway]. There are no abnormalities.”
Less than an hour and a half after the last alert, the congressional building was invaded. The Institutional Security Bureau (Gabinete de Segurança Institucional, or GSI), responsible for providing immediate and direct assistance to the president on matters of national security and defense policy, received repeated alerts about the risk of “violent actions” and the intentions of protesters to “occupy public buildings.” It did not take any precautions in the face of these accounts. Worse: On the Friday before the coup attempt, the bureau even dismissed the shock platoon that protects the presidential palace, where the government is located.
Gen. Júlio Cesar de Arruda, then commander of the Brazilian Army, prevented police from arresting the Bolsonarists camped in front of the army headquarters, a secure area that ordinary citizens usually cannot access. According to The Washington Post, which attributed the information to two witnesses at a military dinner, the general told Flávio Dino, the new minister of justice and public security: “You’re not going to put anyone here in jail.”
Indeed, the Brazilian Army allowed the Bolsonarists to set up camps in front of its headquarters in Brasília for two months. During that period, in December, there was a night of fire and rioting in the capital when a mob tried to invade the headquarters of the Federal Police. Later, the police found a bomb in a fuel tanker truck with almost 70,000 liters of kerosene near Brasília Airport. Three accomplices — each one a Bolsonarist — were identified. They made their plans at the campsite in front of army headquarters and triggered the detonation of the bomb, which did not work. For two months, the military believed it was not necessary to move the campsites.
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Reforming the armed institutions will be central to the new government’s mission. By February, the government had dismissed 26 of the 27 superintendents of the Federal Highway Police — the 27th resigned — and the heads of the Federal Police in 18 states. In Brasília, according to the major Brazilian news website Universo Online, the government dismissed at least 140 people from the military. Among them were members of the GSI, which, despite Lula’s leadership, was still a Bolsonarist nest.
“That notion was lost in the last few years, when a kind of war was established in Brazil of all against all, of the law of the strongest, of anything goes.”
The strongest move to date, however, took place in the first hours of Saturday, January 21. The government dismissed Arruda as head of the army. Deep in his ideological trench, Arruda not only refused to break up the camps of those attempting the coup but strongly opposed the punishment of the Sunday delinquents.
Dino, the minister of justice and public security, argued that radical Bolsonarism in the military can only be combated by reinforcing an emphasis on rules. “That notion was lost in the last few years, when a kind of war was established in Brazil of all against all, of the law of the strongest, of anything goes,” he said. “So what we offer the armed forces of the state is a culture of legality. It doesn’t matter, as such, what you voted or who you will vote for. What matters is that you follow the law, follow your duty. And obviously we need to decontaminate the institutions from individual preferences.” He added: “Nobody can, for example, refuse to comply with an order, a command, a legal decision because it does not fit their personal preferences. And that is even more the case with the armed forces because they exercise a monopoly over the legitimate use of force. The armed forces cannot be a militia at the service of a faction.”
The signs of this “legalism” are starting to appear. Soon after he assumed the role of deputy justice and public security minister, Ricardo Cappelli found himself with the heads of the forces that attacked on January 8 — among them, the commander of the Military Firefighter Corps, Col. Mônica de Mesquita Miranda. Later, Cappelli began to receive calls to dismiss her, accompanied by messages informing him that the colonel was a Bolsonarist and had appeared in photos with a deputy of Bolsonaro’s party. He ignored the messages. “When she came up to me, she said: ‘Secretary, I want to tell the gentleman that I am Republicana,’” Cappelli said. Immediately, he went on: “The division line cannot be between whether one is Bolsonarist or Lulist. The division line has to be legality, respect for the constitution and democratic institutions. If not, the people won’t get anywhere.” So, to this day, Colonel Mesquita Miranda remains head of the corps and commands at least 10,000 firefighters. A full reckoning of Brazilian politics after Bolsonaro may take some time still.
This is an edited translation of an article originally published in the February issue of the Brazilian magazine Revista Piauí.
✺ Published in “Issue 3: Reparation” of The Dial
PHOTO: “Palácio do Planalto destruição Atos golpistas 8 de janeiro” by Vice-Presidência da República (via Wikimedia, licensed under CC BY 2.0)