The Brazilian far-right and its allies began to move in the promised direction that seeks to prevent Jair Bolsonaro from serving 27 years and three months in prison for leading the conspiracy against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Chamber of Deputies approved this morning a bill that significantly reduces sentences for the protagonists of the attempted coup d’état on January 8, 2023. The initiative received 291 votes in favor and 148 against, highlighting the difficulty that Lula has had since his inauguration: the legislature is hostile to his Government and compromises his management at all times. The “legal correction” It was also known as the “dosimetry project” and merges the series of crimes for which the former president and his collaborators were accused based on the most lenient sentences. Bolsonaro could return home in less than three years. The proposal remains in the hands of the Senate and puts Lula in a difficult political situation, between accepting the norm and the willingness to challenge it, if it has the green light.
Bolsonarism managed to establish the debate in a surprising way and at a time when the head of the clan pointed out his son, the Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, as a competitor for the presidency in the 2026 elections. The extreme right has in principle leaned towards a amnesty that favors all those who participated in the attempt to take over the headquarters of the three powers in Brasilia, as well as the retired former captain and the other first-rate conspirators. The reduction in sentences leaves a somewhat bitter taste in the radical opposition, but it could facilitate what has seemed completely impossible since September: for the former president to leave prison. Attempts to stop the trial with the help of Donald Trump were unsuccessful. Bolsonaro was firmly convicted and is currently locked up in a Federal Police cell in the Federal District serving his sentence.
Tuesday’s session was a show of strength by the opposition. The pro-government legislator Glauber Braga was evicted from the Chamber of Deputies by several police officers after denouncing a “coup offensive” that the extreme right also called an attempt to “pacify” Brazil. The last word for the exact calculation of the sentence would be the judiciary, according to the text of the project. The new law would also give the conditional release of 141 people who are imprisoned by the episodes of 8-E.
The Senate is preparing to function as a sounding board for the discussions. The right-wing senator Esperidião Amin will be in charge of informing the plenary session about the project. “I have always defended amnesty,” he said.
Government reaction
The Workers’ Party (PT) assured during the debate that its opponents are not promoting a general law, but rather for the purposes of benefiting Bolsonaro, something they described as “unacceptable“.
The Minister of Institutional Relations, Gleisi Hoffmann, was forceful: “The project contradicts a decision in which the STF (Supreme Federal Court) and Brazil demonstrated independence and sovereignty, in addition to weakening legislation that protects democracy against future coup attempts.”. The same text that proposes toughening the progression of sentences for a series of crimes “grants a benefit to already convicted political criminals.”
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