against , necessary as it was, reveals a politicization of the issue of public security that will see the issue as a priority candidate for rivals in the 2026 presidential campaign.
This has been said for years, but the point is that, despite the constitutional attribution on the subject falling more on states, in practice the federal power has become increasingly involved in the issue, in 1992 proposed by the government (PT) last week.
In a country where the urgency of dealing with organized crime seems to have become a national concern, on a continent where a nuclear superpower attributed to drug traffickers without asking anyone, it is natural that this is the case.
The problem with politicization is when it leaves the field of prioritizing issues. If it is possible to list moments of opportunism from the Ministry of Justice, which is also part of Public Security, the account this Tuesday (28) seems to be the responsibility of ().
The governor of Rio tried to blame Lula for possible problems in his operation. He said that because he wanted armored personnel carriers on the streets, he just forgot to make the request to the competent authority, in this case the president.
The Ministry of Defense only said the obvious: mobilizing military personnel is a matter for GLOs, which have to be requested from Planalto with the admission of specific incapacity of the state forces. Minister Ricardo Lewandowski (Justice), highlighting the issue of Castro’s possible incompetence, maintaining politicization.
With his political slip-up and the violence of the operation, Castro opened a flank in the clash between his Bolsonarism and PTism that could have repercussions in 2026. Historically, the PT and the left have had enormous difficulties in dealing with the issue.
Lula’s phrase blaming users, which his marketing team immediately classified as “misplaced”, is clear proof of this, despite the government’s recent efforts to be active in the area.
In addition to the aforementioned anti-faction package, Operation Hidden Carbon came from the Federal Revenue, which at the end of August made it clear to those who did not yet know how the economy was affected, whether through coercion or the complicity of civil actors, so to speak.
Still, with the bandits it was always from the Brazilian right. From “Rota na rua” by the leader of the group in São Paulo, the former mayor and former governor Paulo Maluf, to the Bolsonarist variations of “cPF cancellation” and “a good criminal is a dead criminal”, popular resonance has always been greater in this spectrum.
Obviously, there are plenty of errors. The high lethality of the police of Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), the governor of São Paulo who is a candidate to occupy the space of the ineligible and condemned (PL), is far from being an asset in itself.
The group makes mistakes when talking about security, as demonstrated by Tarcísio, Castro and the senator (PL-RJ), who suggested to traffickers on the Brazilian coast. With the battle to defend sovereignty already lost by Bolsonarism, something crowned by Lula’s meeting with , it was a double shot in the foot.
Thus, from error to error, moments of vital coordination to attack the root of a problem are lost. They should win the debates in 2026, and it remains to be seen whether anything will be left after the votes are counted.
