“What time did you start doing this, Jair?” asks prison director Rita Gaio, suggesting triviality in the intonation. His interlocutor, the former president (), admits to having used a hot iron the previous afternoon to violate the ankle bracelet. “Curiosity,” he says in the video in which we only hear voices and see the damaged object. Bolsonaro would end up arrested at the headquarters in Brasília.
In the entire operation, the only photograph of the former agent reduces his figure to a shadow.
In 2018, when he was arrested, the current president () created a media event, leaving the headquarters of the Metalworkers Union, in São Bernardo do Campo, in the arms of his supporters.
For allies of both politicians and researchers on the subject, Bolsonaro was unable to capitalize politically on the episode of his arrest, leaving a vacuum on the right, which, cornered, is now trying to reorganize itself.
Federal deputy Rosana Valle (PL-SP) considers that the former president was already serving a precautionary measure in his home at the time when the minister, of the (Supreme Federal Court), decided to preventively arrest him, under the justification of risk of flight.
This week, the magistrate confirmed that Bolsonaro would serve his sentence for attempting a coup d’état at the PF headquarters. In this context, says the deputy, there was no scope for mobilizing supporters.
“People on the right are feeling cornered, because we believe that our freedom is restricted,” says Valle.
“I don’t believe in a weakening of Bolsonaroism, there is no abandonment of Bolsonaro. What exists is caution, concern not to increase this climate of exception. The right is rearticulating itself.”
The deputy also says that PL Mulher, chaired by former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, can be an asset in the rearticulation process. Michelle’s trips are ongoing until the end of the year and, according to the parliamentarian, there is a desire to reinforce the group’s work with conservative families.
In his decision for preventive detention, Moraes pointed out that the agents should respect Bolsonaro’s dignity, carrying out the warrant early in the morning, without handcuffs and, above all, without media exposure. He would cite Lula’s precedent to keep Bolsonaro in the PF, and not in a prison.
Seven years ago, the then judge did not ignore the media issue. He also vetoed the use of handcuffs during the action to arrest Lula, ordering the sentence to be served in a reserved room at the PF headquarters in Curitiba, where the PT member would remain for 580 days.
At that time, it was Lava Jato, and Lula was convicted of corruption and money laundering crimes in the case of the Guarujá triplex.
The Paraná Court considered incompetent to judge those cases, after the revelation of messages that revealed conversations between Moro and prosecutors of the operation.
In any case, the measures taken by the then judge, now a senator for -PR, to prevent media exploitation at the time of Lula’s arrest proved to be ineffective.
From April 5 to 7, 2018, the PT member transformed the headquarters of the ABC Metalworkers Union, in São Bernardo do Campo (SP) into a bunker, delaying the action of federal agents.
When he surrendered, he featured an image of himself carried by his supporters, gathered at the door of the building. The photo would be covered by foreign media. Stealing the spotlight for himself, he gave a speech stating that he was no longer a human being, but an idea.
At the time, . Federal deputy Maria do Rosário (PT-RS), who followed the moments leading up to the surrender, assesses that Lula managed to maintain the cohesion of the PT militancy, something that Bolsonaro did not know how to do.
“No one wavered in the face of what could happen to Lula. The president’s speech reconnected the PT to its historical basis”, he says. “Bolsonaro has a divided bloc of parties and only maintains the support of fanatics.”
She says it is too early to declare the end of Bolsonarism, as, according to her, the new right-wing leaders will have to dialogue, in the next few years, with the former president’s legacy.
Professor of Communication at PUC-Rio and researcher on the relationship between media and politics, Arthur Ituassu agrees that the PT member managed to mobilize the left-wing electorate before and during his time in prison.
“What’s happening now is a void on the right, a dispute to see who takes Bolsonaro’s place,” he says. “On the left, there was no such thing, at no point was Lula’s leadership questioned.” There are strategies behind this, of course.
For the professor, the PT member was successful in presenting himself as a victim during the process he faced. In the case of Bolsonaro, Ituassu highlights the role that the STF played in preventing the former president from politically exploiting the prison.
“If that were to happen, it would trigger a media phenomenon, analogous to the Lula episode,” he states.
For Leandro Aguiar, doctor in communications from UnB, Lula and Bolsonaro showed very different attitudes towards prison: Lula aimed to position himself as a martyr, while Bolsonaro asked for amnesty even before being convicted, showing individualistic behavior.
In Aguiar’s view, the outcome of the coup plot, with the ankle bracelet video, is reminiscent of scenes from a B movie with roulade plots and archetypal characters, including a hero who wants to satisfy narcissistic pleasures. “The martyr needs to accept martyrdom, and individualists do not make good martyrs,” he says.
