The leader of the government in the Senate, Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), stated that the rejection of Jorge Messias’ nomination to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) was used by parliamentarians to politically target President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and said that his relationship with the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), was “very shaken” after last Wednesday’s vote.
In an interview with the newspaper Bahia Notícias, given during a trip to China, Wagner stated that Messias’ hearing stopped being an analysis of the requirements to occupy a seat in the Supreme Court and turned into a political dispute against the government.
— Unfortunately, people didn’t want to know if he was prepared or not, they wanted to give the president a cassette and used Jorge Messias — he said.
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Messias, attorney general of the Union and one of Lula’s closest assistants, had his name rejected by the Senate after months of political wear and tear and silent articulations behind the scenes of the House. The defeat was interpreted in Planalto as a demonstration of strength by Alcolumbre and opened a crisis in the relationship between the government and the command of the Senate.
In the interview, Wagner stated that he was working with the expectation of approval of the nomination and accused parliamentarians of acting against Messias without publicly taking a contrary position.
— I had never done a count with our advisors of less than 41 votes. Unfortunately, a lot of people worked surreptitiously under the table, we didn’t realize it, we didn’t realize it. And, under the hood, they made, in my opinion, a sad Wednesday afternoon — he said.
The senator also came out in defense of Messias and stated that the head of the AGU was the target of political “hatred” during the process. He called Messiah a “wonderful human being.”
The statements come amid the government’s attempts to rebuild bridges with Alcolumbre after the defeat in the Senate. This Tuesday, the Minister of Defense, José Múcio Monteiro, met with the President of the House in an attempt to achieve detente. To GLOBO, Múcio stated that “this is not the time to present a new nomination” to the STF and argued that the government should let the crisis “decant”.
In the interview, Wagner also confirmed the direct attrition with Alcolumbre and associated the crisis with the senator’s preference for the name of former Senate president Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG) for the vacancy in the Supreme Court.
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— My relationship was very strained with the president of the Senate because he wanted Pacheco and, as I am leader of the government, he thinks I had to get this out of the president. And, I repeat, I don’t rule over the president’s head,” he said.
According to Wagner, there was “fan support” for Pacheco’s nomination and some of the senators held the government leader responsible for Lula’s decision to keep Messias as a candidate for the position.
— People think I rule his head. He chose Jorge Messias and I went to work for his approval — he said.
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The senator also criticized what he called the political use of the hearing and stated that the episode could still generate regret among parliamentarians.
Behind the scenes, Lula’s allies attribute to Alcolumbre a decisive role in the coordination that led to the rejection of the head of the AGU. Senators close to the government claim that the president of the Senate not only failed to act to approve the name, but asked for votes against it among parliamentarians from MDB, PSD, União Brasil and PP.
Publicly, however, Alcolumbre denies playing a leading role in the episode. Still, in Planalto, the predominant assessment is that Messias’ defeat would hardly have occurred without the consent — or encouragement — of the president of the Senate.
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