The attack against the leader of the government in , , caused fear among those around the president (PT) due to the assessment that he brought the crisis to Planalto and that he could dampen the speech of the PT campaign against ().
In addition to being leader of the government in the Senate, he is one and has a personal relationship with Lula, who sometimes calls him “my Galician”. He was the founder of the party, governed Bahia and was also Minister of Defense and the Civil House during the PT government.
For now, Lula has decided to keep Jaques Wagner as government leader. They spoke after the operation, according to the senator. “He made a point of calling me, showing solidarity with me”, said Master, in an interview with Band.
The president’s interlocutors, however, say they are uncomfortable with the Chief Executive’s exposure and believe that the parliamentarian exaggerated when describing the contact. In the same interview, Wagner said he would remain in office unless Lula decided otherwise.
A wing of the party said they believed that Wagner would hand over the position of leader, in a gesture to preserve the PT administration. There was the option of announcing his departure to defend himself from the investigation or to focus on his work in Bahia.
Planalto members who previously defended Wagner’s removal because of problems in political articulation said this Thursday to Sheet who would suggest that Lula keep him in office. A departure could only occur at the senator’s own will.
The assessment is that a change at this time would send a message that Planalto does not believe in Wagner and that Lula would not be reluctant to abandon a long-time ally before a conviction.
For part of this group, Wagner failed in recent months in some articulations, such as the defeat of the nomination to the (Supreme Federal Court), and was left unviable in the position after the break with the president of the Senate, (-AP). They assess, however, that Lula missed the timing for the exchange.
The president had already questioned Wagner, in private meetings, about news about his relationship with Augusto Lima, Vorcaro’s former partner. According to reports, on these occasions the senator reassured Lula, stating that he had no involvement in the case.
One of the arguments was that the suspected commercial relationships occurred during the management (PL). Thus, Lula’s ministers said they were surprised between Wagner and Augusto Lima’s family nucleus.
After the operation, Wagner vented. In conversations, he mentioned the names of politicians investigated for million-dollar figures in the case and who were not the target of search and seizure warrants. In a mention of Lava Jato, he said that he has already been through this and will overcome it again.
But there is concern about the electoral impact of this operation. Lula recovered voting intention points in polls after the revelation that Flávio Bolsonaro asked for money from , owner of Master, to finance the film “”, about his father’s life.
In what was released after the revelation of Flávio and Vorcaro’s audios, the PL pre-candidate dropped six points in the first round. In the second round, Bolsonaro’s son went from 45% to 43%, while Lula went from 45% to 47%. The margin of error is two percentage points.
Other surveys showed the PT member’s recovery not only in terms of voting intentions. The PT’s fear is, precisely, that the scandal will interrupt this positive spiral and give strength to Flávio, who spoke of “breath” this Thursday and associated the origin of the Master case with the PT in Bahia.
Despite recognizing the impact, these Lula allies claim that the cases cannot be equated. They say that Flávio is a candidate for President and lied about his relationship with Vorcaro.
PT members also claim that they will continue to use the scandal against the PL pre-candidate. Lula, in turn, must insist on the line that “everyone needs to explain themselves”, adopted in relation to his own son in the investigations into the INSS scandal.
Publicly, the speech is in defense of Wagner. The Minister of Institutional Relations, José Guimarães, stated that the government received the operation with “absolute tranquility” and said that the action showed that the PF has the independence to investigate.
“The Master case belongs to the previous government. We want the investigations to take place with all rigor, in our government the PF has the autonomy to investigate everything”, he stated. “Jaques Wagner is an important leader, who will have every right and our protection to explain himself. We will seek total transparency, we will not put anything under the carpet”, added the Lula government’s political coordinator.
PT president, Edinho Silva, that the senator will prove his innocence. The leader said that the parliamentarian “is the repository of all our trust”.
“We support all investigations involving Banco Master, society has the right to know the truth, the crimes committed need to be investigated and those responsible must be penalized. In this investigation and investigation process, we are confident that Jaques Wagner will clarify all the facts, proving his innocence”, added Edinho in a note.
PT communications secretary and member of the campaign coordination, Éden Valadares anticipated the Bolsonarist attacks, publishing text on the networks in support of the ally.
“The person who authorized Banco Master was the Bolsonaro government. The person who is close to Daniel Vorcaro, visited him even after his arrest and considers him a ‘brother’, is Flávio Bolsonaro. The person who received millions of reais from this scheme was the Bolsonaro family. The attempt to equate these relationships and falsely create the idea that the BolsoMaster scandal affects all Brazilian political fields equally is innocuous and reveals Flávio’s degree of desperation”, he stated.
