Brazil is returning to “institutional” or “democratic normality”, we read in several reports for this 2023. In most cases, this judgment is moderated by the gerund.
However, it is about optimism, naivety, an attempt to cover the sun with a sieve or complicity with the current phase of the organization of this more perverse democracy than usual.
It is clear that we no longer have a coup president. Beyond that, the government seeks to overcome the greatest barbarities of the dark years (2019-2022) and has a program to guarantee or expand constitutional rights, modest in ambition, political creativity and weak in practice.
It’s difficult to go beyond that. The social, economic and political disaster he inherited is enormous, there is a lot to do. Furthermore, the political bloc of the government is the most minority in the redemocratization process. So it is in Congress. This is due to the size of the electorate on the other side of the trench, the regional dominance of conservatism, the size of anti-left sentiment, etc.
That said, this democratic crisis that has been going on since at least 2014-2015 continues. Only a year ago the Bolsonarists attempted to blow up Brasilia airport, people talking about terrorism in front of the Army headquarters.
As we know, the bulk of the coup gang that vandalized the headquarters of the Powers also came from there. This is anecdotal evidence of the popular diffusion of the coup program.
Other coups were conveniently forgotten. Much of the electorate tacitly supports him: only 8% of Jair Bolsonaro’s voters in 2022 regret their vote, says Datafolha.
The soldiers who support Bolsonaro’s tyrannical project have vanished. The trial of the crony generals is barely progressing. The Armed Forces, the Army in particular, are said to have “returned to the barracks”, even if they do not even admit that they have left.
They left, which became scandalous after General Villas Bôas sharpened his bayonet in the STF investigation in 2018, when ministers were grappling with a habeas corpus for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Military participation in the coup plan and institutional destruction was extensive.
How many will go to prison? How long will the “return to the barracks” last? Until 2018 there was the illusion that the soldiers had democratically retreated to their barracks. In practice there is another amnesty for authoritarian chaos.
Congress launches several reprisals against the Supreme Court. In itself, the idea of pushing STF ministers back to their barracks is not a bad idea. The politicization and excesses of the court have only increased over the last decade and a half.
But the centre-right’s motivations are also other, very bad ones: revenge against the Justice system which rightly condemned the parliamentarians and the desire to hinder constitutional powers (such as the constitutionality process).
In Pororoca there is indignation against “progressive” decision-making plans (abortion, marijuana, indigenous land) and others that limit the shameless use of money (amendments).
The STF was a fortress against the authoritarian intentions of Bolsonarism. It was in a sense a dirty war; the Supreme fought with the weapons he had at his disposal, but exceptional, in the bad sense. Furthermore, it is nothing new that he manages the agreements and pace of processes to influence the political game.
What is the status of the lawsuits of Bolsonaro, his family and his associates? Full members of the system of power, these people now have another type of privileged forum: they are judged according to the political convenience of the moment, good or bad. The court bites and blows according to its needs and discretion.
Sleep with normality like this. And there’s a lot more noise.
2023-12-28 00:00:00
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