From Rio de Janeiro
They were two resounding defeats by the far right Jair Bolsonaro, one expected and the other surprising.
On Tuesday, the Chamber of Deputies buried the bill that sought to bring back the printed vote, replacing electronic, introduced in 1996. It is worth remembering that, contrary to what the extreme right repeats repeatedly and compulsively, there has never been fraud in the current system.
That defeat was expected, but it did not calm Bolsonaro’s spirits: he continued to demand “audible elections” to accept the result of next year’s presidential elections, warning of “serious consequences” if “most of us do not trust the official count.
And once again he criticized with unusual aggression Luis Roberto Barroso, which, in addition to being a member of the Federal Supreme Court, the highest court in the country, presides over the Superior Electoral Court.
On Friday, however, the hardest blow came: in response to a request from the Federal Police, another member of the Supreme Court who is the target of presidential fury, Alexandre de Moraes, ordered the arrest of Roberto Jefferson (photo, left, with Bolsonaro), president of the right-wing PTB party and an angry ally of Bolsonaro.
The president’s reaction matched exactly what experts recommend to expect when a psychopath is upset: pure vengeful fury. He announced that he will ask the Senate to dismiss Moraes and Barroso (whom he has already described as “idiot”, “imbecile” and “son of a bitch”, a clear example of what he considers the liturgy of the position he occupies).
In announcing the initiative, he returned, for the umpteenth time, to threaten institutional collapse. Already in the first lines of the text announcing that it will adopt the measure and that it was publicized on their social networks, says the seasoned Bolsonaro: “Everyone knows the consequences, internal and external, of an institutional collapse, which we neither provoke nor desire.”
Whoever writes these texts to him maintains the same style: confused, with grammatical errors, mainly in terms of concordance. And with cataracts of manipulation and lying insinuations.
Yesterday’s text, although it makes no direct mention of Roberto Jefferson, says that the population will not passively accept the continuous violations of freedom of expression and arbitrariness.
Roberto Jefferson was arrested at the request of the Federal Police. This request was supported by a complaint that confirmed the manipulation of information on social networks, coupled with threats of physical aggression against members of the Judiciary, and requests for the closure of Congress followed by requests for military intervention. Also the demand that someone kill Lula.
Furthermore, he called on the allied gunmen of the presidential clan to act against “the communists”, that is, those who oppose the government.
Bolsonaro considers it a constitutional right to do all of this. After all, he says, freedom of expression is being exercised.
Roberto Jefferson is a character known for representing the worst and most abject that exists in Brazilian politics. Cheap manipulator, he has allied himself with all – strictly all – governments since the return of democracy.
He became notorious when he denounced, in Lula’s first presidency, the existence of the “monthly”, which would consist in the purchase of votes from deputies by the government to approve their bills in the Chamber in exchange for monthly fees.
The existence of such a mechanism has never been proven. What could be proven is that several electoral campaign debts of parties allied to the Lula government were covered illegally.
This insidious campaign had immense repercussions in the hegemonic media and almost prevented Lula’s re-election.
No media has ventured to advance on a fundamental point: an ally of Jefferson was thrown out of an important position when mountains of public resources were diverted. Reporting the “mensalão” was his revenge.
Now, with Bolsonaro, he has overcome all the indecency exhibited throughout his political life. And the truth is that both deserve.
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