Approved on Tuesday night by the Chamber, the Antifaction project only received the approval of deputies after the presentation of the sixth version prepared by Guilherme Derrite (PP-SP). Over the course of almost two weeks, the rapporteur’s tortuous path generated discomfort from Centrão, but served to keep alive the political dispute between two possible candidates for the Planalto Palace, the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), and president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).
Licensed Security Secretary of the Tarcísio administration, Derrite was initially articulated by Centrão as a strategy to prevent the proposal from becoming a lifeline for the Lula government in the security area.
The choice is attributed by party chiefs to the president of the PP, senator Ciro Nogueira (PI), who is an ally of the president of the Chamber, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB).
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Nogueira is one of the main organizers of Derrite’s candidacy for the Senate in São Paulo and Tarcísio’s candidacy for the Presidency. Ciro even reached an agreement with Jair Bolsonaro’s PL to take Derrite to the PP recently.
There is also a plan for Derrite to be a candidate for governor if Tarcísio does not run for re-election. But, faced with the turbulent report, the movements cooled down.
PP members were surprised by the negative repercussion that the first versions of Derrite’s report had. A current analysis is that he was the right choice to lead the process, as he is familiar with the area, but that he needed to hear from more leaders before presenting the topic.
Derrite presented different texts and, in some of them, he did not hear party leaders, government members or his own allies in Bolsonarism.
Government artillery
Although Derrite motivated a political clash with the Executive, another criticism made behind the scenes is that the deputy had not adequately prepared himself for the artillery from Palácio do Planalto against the project.
Tarcísio initially avoided speaking publicly about the project and did not participate in the meeting of right-wing governors with the president of the Chamber last Wednesday.
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He limited himself to defending the choice of Derrite for the role, but the governor did not get involved, for example, in the rapporteur’s arm wrestling with the Federal Police (PF).
Tarcísio commented on the project in more detail only on Thursday, one day after the text was postponed until the following week.
The governor said in an interview in São Paulo that the “election is far away” and that “he is focused on work in São Paulo”. Despite this, he also criticized Lula’s conduct in the area of security.
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When contacted, the governor said through his advisor that he addressed the matter in an interview.
Derrite’s office stated that “Governor Tarcísio is not participating in the process (of the Antifaction project) and the choice was technical, based on the experience he has in the area of public security”. Ciro Nogueira and Hugo Motta did not comment.
Representative Aluisio Mendes (Republicanos-MA), who mediated meetings between Derrite and federal police officers to reduce resistance to the project, criticized the government.
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“The choice of Deputy Derrite has nothing to do with ideology. He is a Secretary of Public Security with extensive experience. The government was jealous of having sent a project late and that today there is no one linked to the government to be a rapporteur. But nothing prevents the government from being a partner in this project, instead of being questioned because it is not the owner of the child.”
Terrorism
According to reports from parliamentarians involved in the negotiations, the initial idea was to draft a different project, which equated the factions to terrorist groups.
Part of the Centrão and the opposition were preparing to approve this other text and leave aside the Antifaction project, suggested by the government. However, the attempt had to be reconsidered because the president of the Chamber indicated that he was against classifying faction members as terrorists.
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The solution found by Motta, then, was to choose Derrite to report on the government project.
Arrested, Bolsonaro is oblivious to the strategy
Although the Antifaction project has been celebrated by the right, allies are still trying to align with Jair Bolsonaro which political discourse about the project will be used in the clash with Lula.
Part of Centrão and Bolsonaro’s allies are also trying to convince the former president to nominate Tarcísio as his political heir for 2026. The conversation between the two, authorized by the Federal Supreme Court (STF), will only take place in December.
Members of the União Brasil leadership, who also participated in the choice of Derrite as rapporteur, see a short deadline for the right to unite and fear that Bolsonaro will be arrested in the short term without having reached an agreement with the group.
“I see Derrite as a great specialist in public security, given his track record, and the topic has to be addressed by those who have already been involved in operations and not by scholars and academics who have little understanding. If he is adding to Tarcísio, great. Tarcísio is a very highly rated governor”, said the governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema (Novo) to GLOBO.
Zema also wants to run for President, and disagrees with the strategy of Centrão’s parties.
“I have already launched my pre-candidacy, I informed Bolsonaro, he was the first person to be notified. He is of the opinion that several right-wing candidates only add points to the right and it is up to him to make that decision.”
Spotlights for Tarcísio
On the government side, the presidential environment saw the opposition’s articulation of placing Derrite as the protagonist of the issue as a way of bringing Tarcísio into the spotlight of an issue dear to the right such as public security.
Government strategists believe that the opposition should stretch the rope in the area as far as possible, since economic issues, such as income reform, are already equalized in Congress.
“It was an organized operation, Derrite got the report ready. It is not possible to get a secretary’s license one day and have the report the next. Tarcísio is running an electoral campaign with Derrite, then he went into hiding when he saw the failure of the reports. We are winning the debate and insisting that it is necessary to put forward the agendas that interest the population”, states federal deputy Rui Falcão (PT-SP), before approving the text in plenary.
Center of government discussions
A sensitive topic for the PT administration, public security has gained importance and is at the center of government discussions. In reaction to the meeting of right-wing governors with Hugo Motta, Lula called six ministers who were once heads of state executives at Palácio do Planalto on Thursday for a meeting.
A wing of the government assesses that the political articulation failed to detect the opposition movement that led Derrite to be the rapporteur of a project that was born in the Ministry of Justice and was Lula’s showcase for the area of public security.
