The arguments of political persecution, the appeal to allies abroad, and the clashes with an antagonist of the judiciary are common elements between the defense of the former president () in the coup plot, which will be tried from the 2nd by the (Supreme Court), and that of the president (PT) at the time of Lava Jato.
Analyzed in different forums and for different crimes, the two cases exploit the lawfare thesis of judicial persecution, used by when Lula’s lawyer and now repeated by Celso Vilardi, Bolsonaro’s lawyer.
Zanin, today Minister of the Supreme Court, is part of the first class of the Court and will be one of the ministers who will judge Bolsonaro. If during Lava Jato Zanin criticized the former judge’s performance, responsible for judging Lula’s lawsuits in the operation, now he sees Bolsonaro’s defense alleging persecution by the minister.
Moro condemned Lula in July 2017 for passive and money laundering for the Guarujá triplex. The lawsuit ran in the common court because, at the time, former presidents lost the special forum as they left office. The conviction was held in the second instance in January 2018, and Lula was arrested. He led the polls of voting intent to the president, something that was exploited by the PT to claim that the intention of the prison was to keep him away from the dispute.
The petista was released in November 2019 after the Supreme Court changes the understanding of the beginning of compliance with the penalties. In March 2021, the Court annulled all the convictions of Lula in the Lava Jato, and Moro was – leaked moves indicated that.
Bolsonaro is accused of crimes such as attempted coup and criminal organization. He will be tried by the Supreme Court because in March this year, the Court decided that the special forum should be maintained even after a president left office.
The defense of the former president alleges that Alexandre de Moraes, rapporteur of the coup plot in the Supreme Court, could not judge the case for recognizing himself as the victim of an episode investigated in the action: a plan to kill the minister. The impediment.
“The right is interpretative. It is plausible to see that he is not prevented from appreciating the action because there is one and the attack on democracy does not customize this kind of thing,” said Roberto Livianu, prosecutor of Sao Paulo, a doctor of law from USP and president of Inac (Institute not accepted corruption).
Livanu was one of the great advocates of Lava Jato, but today he understands that Lula’s conviction was compromised by Moro’s performance. By comparing the cases, he estimates that the accusations against Bolsonaro are “much more serious” than those who weighed against Lula and that there is “very substantial” evidence against the former president. “Crime against the democratic order is a barbaric crime, it is a social fracture of difficult reparation that damages society as a whole,” he said.
Bolsonaro and his supporters have promoted a series of attacks on Moraes in recent years, with the former president calling the minister “scoundrel” and saying that he would no longer obey him. For this week’s trial, the security around the Supreme Court was reinforced, with an increase in the actual police and agents sleeping at the court headquarters.
In addition, the safety of the Federal District has been expanded to avoid camping around the Three Powers Square, where only accredited people can circulate. The same happened in May 2017 when Lula testified to Moro in the Federal Court of Curitiba. At the time, Pro and against the petista were allocated in different parts of the city, which also received special security reinforcement.
Boconists claim that one of the trial’s motivations is to keep the former president away from next year’s presidential dispute, although he is ineligible since June 2023. Bolsonaro himself told Allies that he evaluates Lula’s footsteps in 2018, when the petista launched his candidacy and waited for the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) to publicly announce his replacement in the dispute.
For political scientist Juliana Fratini, although Bolsonaro aims at Lula’s example, the petista had already paved the ground for Fernando Haddad to be his candidate, putting him as vice on his plate, while there is an ultimate right over who will inherit the former president’s electoral estate.
“Lula already aimed at continuing power without his physical presence. Bolsonaro, no. So much so that all the time wonders which of the right governors he will indicate as a driver of pockets in his absence,” she said.
International intrigue
Both the allies of Lula and Bolsonaro sought to spread abroad the thesis of persecution. The petistas fired international organizations, gave interviews to foreign vehicles, lectured at universities, and Zanin in 2017, as a lawyer of Lula, rode England and Italy to denounce what was said to be a lack of guarantee of the petista’s rights.
In 2022, the Human Rights Committee concluded that Lula had his political rights violated in his arrest by Lava Jato. In July of this year, the same committee was fired by the Boconist Deputy Filipe Barros (PL-PR) for measures against what he classifies as persecution of Bolsonaro-the measure was adopted by the parliamentarian after the former president becomes monitored by an electronic anklet at the command of Moraes.
In the case of Bolsonaro, Eduardo, son of former president and federal deputy for PL-SP, since March this year at a crusade against Moraes. Assisted by Paulo Figueiredo, the last president of the military dictatorship, he got Donald Trump to apply sanctions to the minister, such as his veto at his entrance, and cite Bolsonaro as a target of persecution to justify the imposition of a 50% tariff on Brazilian products exported to the country.
After the US President announced the surcharge, Bolsonaro, in the former president’s cell phone, that the negotiation for the removal of tariffs was conditioned to the approval of amnesty to him and others involved in the January 8 episode.
“If you don’t start by voting amnesty, there’s no negotiation,” Bolsonaro said, adding, “Solved the amnesty, solved everything. It didn’t solve it, it was.”
Justice Minister and Union Attorney General in the Governments Dilma Rousseff (PT), José Eduardo Cardozo criticizes the performance of the Bolsonarists in relation to the measures adopted in the surroundings of Lula. “We never asked a foreign state to apply sanction to Brazilians. There was representation to international bodies in cases where Brazil signed treated by human rights,” says the petista. “Abroad we went to lectures, not ask for sanctions.”
