BRASÍLIA/SÃO PAULO (Reuters) – The unsuccessful bomb attack on the Federal Supreme Court last Wednesday (13) should reunite Brasília against far-right radicalism and undermine a possible return of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is contesting the court decision that prevents him from running for public office.
But this institutional response is also likely to fuel supporters’ belief that they are being silenced, further polarizing a country that has seen a rise in political violence since Bolsonaro’s rise in 2018, after relatively calm decades.
but did not cause other fatalities, also brings into focus how dangerously the Supreme Court has become the target of the far-right’s ire, motivated by a deep feeling that the court sought to expel it from the political arena.
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As in the United States, both sides in Brazil believe that democracy is at risk.
Progressives point to acts of violence like last Wednesday’s bombings as a direct attack on Brazil’s democratic institutions, while the far right insists that it is these same institutions that are manipulating democracy against it.
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After the explosions, STF minister Alexandre de Moraes reinforced the opinion that extreme right-wing hate speech is threatening Brazilian democracy and encouraging violence, arguments he used to silence some of his fiercest critics on social media.
“What happened is not an isolated fact from the context,” said Moraes on Thursday. “It grew under the false cover of a criminal use of freedom of expression.”
The minister compared the bomb attack to the acts of January 8 last year in the capital, when Bolsonaro supporters invaded the court and the other two seats of Power to protest his defeat by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the presidential election.
“END OF CHAT”
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Wednesday’s explosions, which also detonated a car in a congressional parking lot, appear to have strengthened a consensus in Congress against a proposed amnesty for participants in last year’s violent protests.
Senior sources from two of the largest centrist parties in Congress said the , now appears dead.
“The possibility of this amnesty proposal for the January 8 people, and by extension Bolsonaro, is over — end of story,” said André César, from the Hold Assessoria Legislativa consultancy.
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Even members of a right that is not necessarily Bolsonarist believe that the environment has become less favorable for the amnesty proposal. Representative Saullo Viana (União-AM), for example, states that the bomb attack on the STF is the reason why Brazil should never forgive attacks on democracy.
“I am strictly against granting amnesty for acts of this nature. We cannot normalize this Wednesday’s explosions, nor the undemocratic acts of December 2022 and January 8, 2023, otherwise they will become constant”, said the Amazonas deputy.
It could also be the last straw to undermine Bolsonaro’s hopes of reversing the decision that made him ineligible until 2030.
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The final decision on this appeal will probably rest with the Federal Supreme Court (STF), now even less likely to consider the former president’s case sympathetically.
This new focus on Bolsonaro’s most violent supporters also comes at a time when the Federal Police are concluding an investigation into his alleged role behind the January 8 attacks and a plot to overturn the election results, with support from the military. .
“It comes at a terrible time for Bolsonaro,” said Carlos Melo, a political scientist at Insper university in São Paulo, referring to the pending criminal complaint. “And this will happen in the context of this crazy person who blew up the bombs in Praça dos Três Poderes.”
Bolsonaro, who has denied irregularities and considers criminal investigations a witch hunt, responded to the attacks in a publication on
After the good performance of allies in the Brazilian municipal elections and the United States election, Bolsonaro’s party advertised its chances of overcoming obstacles to run for President in 2026.
For now, however, the bombing appears to have united the ranks of Brasilia against Bolsonaro and his supporters. This may just fuel tensions further.
“If on one side Moraes is getting stronger… on the other you will have more radicalized people,” said political scientist Creomar de Souza, from the political risk consultancy Dharma.
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