After rejecting Messiah, the opposition plans to block Lula’s nominations until elections

With the rejection of the name of Jorge Messias to a vacancy on the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Bolsonarists articulate with the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), to block any other nominations of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the post until the October election.

With 34 votes in favor and 42 against, the Senate rejected it on Wednesday night (29). This had not happened for 132 years, since 1894, and represents a crisis of major proportions for the Palácio do Planalto.

Senators told Estadão that they asked Alcolumbre to hold the nominations for the next six months. They believe that, regardless of Lula’s decision, the next name will need to be agreed with the Senate, at the risk of suffering the same fate as Messiah.

Some parliamentarians see today former Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco (PSB-MG) would be the only name with consensus within the Senate to be approvedas it already has the approval of Alcolumbre. The senator migrated last month from the PSD to the PSB to run as a pre-candidate for the government of Minas Gerais with the support of Lula.

“I think Pacheco would have avoided a lot of the resistance they had now in this vote. We will evaluate which names will be sent, but it was clear that the electoral process will contaminate any debate in this regard. There will hardly be an analysis of a new name before the election, other than Pacheco’s name”, says senator Efraim Filho (PL-PB).

The opposition’s desire had already been exposed throughout Messias’ hearing at the Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ) earlier. Some senators expressed the desire that the nomination would be voted on only after defining who will govern the country from 2027 onwards.

Senators Márcio Bittar (PL-AC) and Marcos Rogério (PL-RO) were two of them. If fellow voter Flávio Bolsonaro wins the election in October, the choice would be his, for example.

“This would not be the appropriate time to hold this hearing and this vote. The general elections will soon come, and Brazilians will go to the polls to define the country’s political direction. So the best thing would be not to vote on the nomination until the people decide the direction they want for Brazil”, declared Rogério in the hearing.

This is the same tactic used by American parliamentarians from the Republican Party against then-president Barack Obama (Democratic Party) in 2016.

Led by Mitch McConnell, Republicans blocked Obama’s nomination that year to the United States Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, in the seat opened by Antonin Scalia. The seat was eventually filled by Donald Trump, elected president for the first time in November, with the choice of Neil Gorsuch.

Trump’s allies argued that, as it was an election year, the choice should be made by the next person elected by the people. The maneuver was seen by observers and political scientists as a fraying of the limits of American democracy, with a refusal to follow unwritten rules that allowed respectful coexistence between institutions.

Messias’ defeat has the fingerprints of the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), upset by the fact that Lula dismissed his nomination for the vacancy. Alcolumbre wanted his ally and former president of the House, senator Rodrigo Pacheco (PSB-MG), for the post.

The president of the Senate had been refusing to receive Messias to talk in the traditional kissing session that nominees to the STF go through in order to gather support for the vote. Bolsonaristas say that Alcolumbre worked until this week to get votes against Messias.

The overthrow of the nomination was on the radarbut the score surprised the PT members, who confidently stated minutes before that they had up to 48 votes. Messiah needed 41 of 81 votes.

This Wednesday’s result meant a defeat described as “overwhelming” by the senators – and an unexpected betrayal for Messias. This is because his allies said that he received express support from 36 senators, apart from the independents who he hoped to win in the secret vote, reaching around 45 votes.

The Bolsonaro opposition celebrated the vote and sent a series of messages to the federal government in statements to the press after the end of the session. They declare that this Wednesday night, the 29th, imposes the end of Lula’s third term.

“The Senate gave a clear message that it will not accept interference from other powers, regardless of the person whose name was rejected,” said senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ), pre-candidate for the Presidency of the Republic.

Messias followed the vote with his wife and members of the government and PT in the government leadership office in the Senate, and spoke to the press afterwards. He admitted that “it is not easy to fail”.

“I spent five months deconstructing my image (…) but I believe that a lot of good things will happen in my life”, said the AGU minister. He did not name those responsible for the result of the vote, but said: “We know who did this.”

*Estadão Content