On social media, users joined and began sharing records about their lives in 2016: where they lived, what they worked with, who they hung out with and where they traveled. THE Sheet decided to do the same and seek out where relevant political figures and ministers of the United States were ten years ago.
Lula became a Lava Jato defendant, Jair Bolsonaro paid tribute to Colonel Brilhante Ustra, Geraldo Alckmin opposed the , Fernando Haddad suffered electoral defeat, Alexandre de Moraes was criticized by the left and explained payments to his law firm, Michelle Bolsonaro campaigned for her husband and Simone Tebet voted in favor of Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment.
Some things have changed, others not so much.
In March 2016, the then judge ordered Lula to be taken to testify through coercive conduct. In July, the PT member became a defendant under the , accused of having prevented him from signing a plea bargain agreement. He was acquitted of that charge.
Later in the same year, Moro accepted a complaint from the MPF (Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office) and Lula became a defendant on charges of the crimes of passive and money laundering, in addition to the suspicion of receiving bribes from Odebrecht through the purchase of properties in São Paulo and São Bernardo do Campo. In 2021, all of Lula’s convictions related to Lava Jato were annulled by the STF. Elected to the Presidency of the Republic in 2022, he will run for reelection this year for a fourth term.
Jair Bolsonaro had held the position of federal deputy for Rio de Janeiro since 1991 and, in 2016, gained national attention when he voted in favor of the impeachment of the colonel, a torturer during the military dictatorship.
At the time a member of the PSC, Bolsonaro used his growing visibility on social media to launch himself and be elected to the Presidency of the Republic two years later. Convicted by the STF in 2025 for an attempted coup d’état at the end of 2022, he is currently serving his sentence in Papudinha.
Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), then in the PSDB, governed São Paulo for the second consecutive term and in the following elections. At the beginning of 2016, the Civil Police and the Public Ministry launched an operation that brought to light: an alleged corruption scheme that would have involved the state government, city halls and deputies.
Now vice-president of the government, at the time Alckmin was critical of the PT and defended the impeachment of then president Dilma Rousseff (PT).
Michel Temer (MDB) began 2016 as vice-president of the government, but assumed the presidency on an interim basis in May, when the PT member’s impeachment process was initiated in the Senate.
That month, recorded dialogues in which the then Minister of Planning, Romero Jucá (MDB), suggested to the former president of Transpetro Sérgio Machado that a “change” in the federal government would result in a pact to “stop the bleeding” of .
In August, with the end of the impeachment process, Temer’s presidency became definitive. At the end of the year, his management was disapproved, Datafolha showed.
Former governor João Doria marked his debut in an electoral dispute by running for Mayor of São Paulo. “I, who had never run for any electoral mandate, made the decision to run in the PSDB caucuses with little chance of winning, to say the least none, and I won,” he told Sheet.
Doria, then mayor Fernando Haddad (PT), who had the support of Lula, former mayor Marta Suplicy, at the time in the MDB, and federal deputy Celso Russomanno (Republicans). “For the first time in São Paulo’s electoral history there was a victory in the first round. This was very important in my life, the decision to go into politics, to the Executive, contest the election and win.” Recently, he said he had given up on politics.
In 2016, Haddad was defeated in his attempt to be re-elected mayor of São Paulo. In July, the PT member’s management was approved by , according to Datafolha. Months later, Haddad finished the election in second place, with 16.7% of the votes, defeated in the first round by the then toucan João Doria, who had 53.3% of the votes.
At the end of the year, a report from Sheet It showed that the PT member would end his term with only his campaign fully completed.
Minister Cármen Lúcia assumed the presidency of the court for the following two years, becoming the second woman in history to hold the position. At the time, reported that the minister intended to mark her administration as an exercise in “social pacification”. His biggest concern was prison overcrowding and the situation of pregnant inmates.
At the end of the year, she warned about attempts to restrict the Judiciary and asked for respect between the Powers.
That year, before his appointment to the Federal Supreme Court, Moraes became Minister of Justice in the Temer government. Recently sworn in, he defended the fight against organized crime, especially weapons smuggling, and said that the violent actions of left-wing movements. It was from students at the USP Law School, where he already worked as a professor. They criticized Moraes’ previous performance as São Paulo’s Secretary of Security, which they considered repressive.
At the end of 2016, Operation Acronônimo, coordinated by the Federal Police and the Federal Public Ministry, seized documents that indicated payment from one of the investigated companies, JHSF Participações, to Moraes’ law firm. At the time, he told the Sheet that the payments were legal and that the case had already been filed by STF minister Luiz Fux.
The former first lady’s personal records do not show expressions of support for the then federal deputy’s pre-candidacy for the 2018 presidential elections. Michelle also appears in photos with her daughters Letícia Firmo and Laura Bolsonaro and with athletes from the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
Ten years ago, the current first lady worked as communications and institutional relations advisor for , before its privatization in 2022. She was appointed fiscal advisor to CGTEE (Companhia de Geração Térmica de Energia Elétrica) and CTEEP (Companhia de Transmissão de Energia Elétrica Paulista).
In the same year, Janja returned to work at the Itaipu Hydroelectric Plant as assistant to the general director, a position he had previously held at the company, between 2003 and 2012.
In 2016, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) was a legislative consultant in the area of urban development, traffic and transport in the Chamber of Deputies, a position he had entered the previous year, after leaving the direction of the (National Department of Transport Infrastructure), under the Dilma government.
In a public hearing promoted by Funai’s CPI, in February, Tarcísio said that the federal body established “odd” requirements and adopted “ideological” criteria for granting environmental licenses. Still in 2016, he took over as secretary of Project Coordination of the Special Secretariat of the Investment Partnership Program (PPI), responsible for the Temer government’s privatization, concessions and privatization program.
The governor told the Sheet What marked him most in 2016 was holding his first international roadshow, in New York, as secretary of the PPI. “The enthusiasm of foreign investors in the face of the perception that Brazil had changed was very clear. The key had turned. The country left a clearly anti-business stance and started adopting a pro-investment agenda, which generated enormous interest.”
“The meetings were full, investors were fighting for space to talk to our team and there was a very clear feeling of a change of scenery. It was evident that Brazil was entering a new phase after years of PT management”, continued Tarcísio, who claims to be a pre-candidate for re-election in São Paulo.
The current Minister of Planning and Budget was in her first term as senator for Mato Grosso do Sul. A member of the MDB, she voted in favor of the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff. Between 2015 and 2016, he chaired the Committee to Combat Violence Against Women and was a full member of the Constitution and Justice, Regional Development and Education committees.
The year 2016 marked her “due to the intense and fair demand from society for more ethics and responsibility in politics, in addition to the defense of greater participation of women in spaces of power”, says Tebet. “I was also actively engaged in the approval of important projects, such as the Legal Framework for Early Childhood.”
“2016 reinforced a conviction that has always accompanied me: doing politics as a woman requires courage to support positions, face tough debates and firmly defend what one believes in”, added the minister, whose name has been considered for a candidacy for the Government of São Paulo or for the Senate in the same state.
In 2016, Hugo Motta (Republicans) was already a federal deputy for Paraíba, at the time affiliated with the MDB. He was an ally of the Michel Temer government and, in the same year, voted in favor of the PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution). He was a candidate for leader of the MDB bench after having presided over Petrobras’ CPI the previous year, at the age of 25, but was not elected.
A decade ago, Davi Alcolumbre (União Brasil) was already a senator for the state of Amapá and chaired the Regional Development and Tourism committee. At the time, a member of the Democrats, he was part of the special commission that analyzed the accusation of a criminal offense against the then President of the Republic Dilma Rousseff, being part of the opposition bloc.
