Does the coup attempt strengthen Lula da Silva? The unknowns of a third term that promises to be difficult

The coup attempt perpetrated by thousands of radical Bolsonarists has revealed the climate of social division in Brazil and pitted President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s leadership against an increasingly isolated Jair Bolsonaro.

The assault on the seats of Parliament, the Presidency and the Supreme Court provoked a new show of force by all the institutions, which responded with one voice to the “terrorist” acts and “coup” of 8 January in Brasilia .

It was four hours of chaos, violence and vandalism in the heart of Brazilian democracy.

“It is an episode of unprecedented proportions in the history of Brazilian politics,” political scientist Rogério Arantes, a professor at the University of São Paulo (USP) specializing in constitutionalism, told EFE.

difficult start

With just a week in power, Lula surgically put an end to an insurrection that has left 1,500 detained and a very negative external image.

decreed the federal intervention in the security area of ​​Brasilia and organized emergency meetings with the heads of the legislative and judicial branches and with the country’s 27 governors.

Virtually everyone attended, including those aligned with former President Bolsonaro, such as Claudio Castro of Rio de Janeiro and Tarcísio de Freitas of São Paulo, who was infrastructure minister during the former president’s administration.

On Sunday the coup plotters climbed the ramp of Palazzo Planalto – the seat of government – and destroyed everything in their path. On Monday, Lula brought her under the arms of Supreme Court justices, his cabinet ministers and regional governors.

That symbolic march ended in the headquarters of the Supreme Court, where the greatest damages were recorded.

For Marco Teixeira, professor of political science at the study center of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), Lula emerges strengthened and “with more legitimacy” as a counterpoint to a “clearly isolated” Bolsonarism.

Even if the crisis does not end with Sunday’s failed coup. The more radical Bolsonarism has flexed its muscles on the road.

In the days following Lula’s narrow victory in October’s election, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters blocked hundreds of highways and set up camps at the gates of the barracks that remained until Monday, when the Supreme Court ordered their dismantling.

During the two months they stood, with the consent of the army, misinformation, bigotry and conspiracy theories circulated, fueled by the silence of Bolsonaro, who still today has not recognized his defeat at the polls and traveled to the United States a few days before the end of the year to avoid passing the presidential sash to his successor.

They even went so far as to place an explosive in a tanker near the Brasilia airport on the eve of Lula’s inauguration.

It was the fertile ground that led to the coup attempt, in a context of extremely high polarization which was clearly seen in the second round of the presidential elections, which Lula won by just 1.8 points over Bolsonaro (50.9% -49.1%).

The progressive leader has made a commitment to “pacify” the country, even though Arantes believes he will have “great difficulty” in achieving this goal due to the prevailing political division.

Furthermore, he stresses that until the funding networks of these coup groups are dismantled, “the country is subject to new attacks” such as that of 8 January.

Bolsonaro, isolated

However, while it showed capacity for mobilization, radical Bolsonarismo subtracted its space in the institutional sphere and left Bolsonaro between a rock and a hard place.

The retired captain has come away with huge political capital since the election, but his march to the United States on December 30 with no return ticket and his half-hearted rejection of the vandalism experienced in Brasilia undermine his chances of leading the opposition , according to analysts.

Furthermore, the moderate right “will not even want to have Bolsonaro as leader”, as it would reduce its electoral spectrum, according to Arantes.

Several of his closest allies have already distanced themselves, among them the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, who was present at the meeting convened by Lula to defend the same institutions constantly discredited by Bolsonaro.

“No one wants to go down in history as a coup plotter,” says Teixeira.

Source: EFE

B. C