It’s not news that political Brazil is doing very badly. The symptoms are everywhere, but there are misdiagnoses. From hyper-institutionalist views, which attribute the current state of affairs to institutional design, in which the usual suspect is, to the diagnosis that evil forces are usurping powers of the Executive.
There is, however, a parsimonious explanation that accounts for most of the conflict: Under any system of government, there would be important conflicts between the Powers. Of course, under presidentialism, they take on more forcefulness and have specificities (in some cases, they imply shutdown).
Cooperation between rival forces only exists when there are gains in exchange. But the problem is that, in the country, this goes far beyond legal exchanges; there is much more than Bismarck’s lavish sausages. It is not just realpolitik —political bargaining and exchange of advantages aimed at survival. How They involve varied crimes: from influence peddling —through licenses to steal— to embezzlement of resources on a colossal scale.
And it’s not just that. There is a flagrant violation of democratic accountability. On the one hand, abdication of the control function (for example, shielding forts); on the other, abdication of the representative function, as in the case of the agreement between the Executive branch and sectors of the opposition in Congress. The bargain involved an exchange of R$20 billion for , which is the subject of indignant speeches in “defense of democracy” by the government and parliamentarians from its base.
There was widespread mobilization against it, which led the government to set up a damage reduction operation to shift the blame to Senator Jacques Wagner, who took the initiative as his own. According to the combination, the Executive must veto, with the expectation that the veto will be overturned, including with the participation of the government. But resources cannot spill the beans. Net balance: civic cynicism is on the rise.
In reality, the court is already involved in the agreement: minister Alexandre de Moraes would have participated in the production of the text of the bill, while denouncing the Legislature’s “absurd interference” in judicial decisions. All of this has come to light and adds up to an unprecedented crisis. The president, whose reputation has already been tarnished in two scandalous cases of corruption in the past, has a son involved in allegations in the INSS scandal. In Congress, the president faces accusations, and the deputy leader of the government had a search and seizure warrant issued by a STF minister. At court, however, two ministers have been the subject of serious allegations, which is unprecedented.
Today, the only institution that still enjoys widespread confidence among the electorate is . This autonomy, however, is threatened if a pattern of retaliations between ministers who carry out different actions within the scope of the Supreme Court is consolidated. If such a dynamic materializes, its effects will be deeply corrosive for the Republic, even if its immediate impact on governability may seem limited.
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