Was Lula’s response proportional to the attacks on the Presidential Palace, Congress, and the Supreme Court?

Transcript

This is an unedited version of the transcript. An edited version will be arriving shortly.

Sharmini Peries

Welcome to the analysis. I’m Sharmny Pierce, and I’ll be right back with Professor Lorena Barbarina. As we watch the events leading up to the two rounds of presidential elections in Brazil and then the inauguration of President Lula DA Silva on January 1, many of us wondered how long Lula will be able to fend off a political crisis or even a coup. This is given the very narrow margin of his electoral victory and the fact that supporters of the former President Bolsonaro happened to be very strategically embedded in the military, in the police, in Congress, the supreme Court, and some critical states. So then we were not surprised that a week after Lula’s inauguration, former President Bolsonaro’s supporters attacked the presidential palace, congress, the supreme Court, and ran havoc in Brazilia. Joining me now to discuss the recent political turmoil and the rise of the far right in Brazil is Lorina Garbarina. She is a professor of political science at the University of Sao Paulo. Lorena, thank you so much for joining us.

Lorena Barberia

Thank you, thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Sharmini Peries

Lorena, as we watched the event unfolding in Brazilian on Sunday, as mobs attacked the presidential palace congress and the supreme Court, one just could not ignore the parallels to December 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill in the US. Now, can you draw attention to the parallels that I’m referring to here and what your observations were?

Lorena Barberia

Yes, so I think there’s some similarities and there’s some differences, and it’s important to to preface that. Of course, Bolsonaro, while he was in office, watched the January 6 insurrection and learned it was a very effective theater for him to see. And he has been closely following a lot of Trump’s actions. So what is different is that Bolsonaro was not physically present in Brazilia, in the capital at that moment, and Lula had already been inaugurated, which is different. So that’s one thing that’s very striking different is that the insurrection, or what we are calling in Brazil, terrorist attacks on these institutions, it happens when the transition has already occurred, but on a Sunday when legally or when those offices are not occupied physically by people working and the buildings are being attacked. But physically, government is not in operation. So it’s a little bit different from January 6 in the sense that congress wasn’t in session, the supreme Court was an in session, and the equivalent of our White House. It wasn’t a regular work day. It was a Sunday. But it was the first week in office in a very rocky and very difficult transition.

We have to remember that Bolsonaro did not hand over power to Lula. He left on a diplomatic passport before the transition could take place, a transition ceremony throughout his government. He stressed and he emphasized that the elections would be manipulated and that he questioned the legitimacy of elections. And when Lulu assumes power in January 1, that occurred in the context of assuming power with a very fragile electoral majority. As you noted, he won by 50.9% of the vote. Congress, many congressmen were elected that support Bolsonarodo. And we also have a strong military and police support of Bolsonaro. And several governors were also elected that support the president. So he assumes power trying to construct a broad coalition cognizant of the opposition that exists to his election and trying to build consensus about the need to make a peaceful transition within democracy given his electoral victory, but also recognizing important forces of dissent. And not only that, throughout Brazil, not only in Brazilia. Bolsonaro supporters constructed encampments starting in November and December that were really well staffed, well organized encampments right near the military barracks. So there’s already these mobilizations, those mobilizations grow in Brazilian to have at least 40,000 people in the encampments in December before Lula transition.

So there’s already kind of an environment that’s indicating that there’s interest in provoking the police, provoking the military and creating instability that would lead to the military wanting to intervene.

Sharmini Peries

There are 40,000 encampments are fairly large in terms of preparation for any kind of resistance against Lula. Now, many people analyzing these events alluded to the fact that the role of the military and the police one clip I saw said that the police were actually sitting on the sidelines, sipping on their coconut and ignoring the mobsters that were attacking these democratic institutions in Brazil. What are your thoughts on that?

Lorena Barberia

So I think it’s important I’ve spoken with a number of people who visited the encampments. When we talk about these encampments, it’s important to underscore. They had electricity, they had generators, they had hospital, many hospitals set up already. They had computers and offices working in these barracks, in these encampments near the barracks. So you don’t do that unless you have a lot of people who are very experienced in logistics and financing. This is not some kind of like Boy Scout encampment that in the imaginary. People need to understand. These are very well set up camps that were very well organized and well set up. And they’re right, they’re situated near the barracks. But what’s important to understand is that, as you were, alluding the security in Brazilian is managed by the state government because it’s a federal district and the governor of Brazilian is in charge of the policing in the federal district and provides security during the transition to the government that’s in office. The chief of police of Bolsonaro, who is we have to remember this, is a person who during the elections mobilized and set up inspections of buses to try to slow down voting in the poorer parts of the northeast of Brazil especially.

So there was sanctioned by the chief of police of Bolsonaro. There was already during the elections, a lot of activity by the chief of police. When Bolsonaro loses the election, the governor who governs in this federal district of Brazilia appoints the same police chief as the head of policing in the city. And that already signals alarm bells because this is the police chief that’s going to be in charge of the transition, in charge of ensuring security for the Lula government taking office. There’s a bomb that goes off on December 26 in the airport as Brazilian, brazilian is getting lots of influx of new newly appointed ministers and newly appointed elected officials and different civil servants that are coming in to take over and start working on the transition. So there’s a bomb that goes off. The chief of police is managing the security in a very adverse context, not sharing a lot of information with the Lula government. And on top of that, you have these kind of very well funded and organized encampments in Brazilia, but in other parts of Brazil. And as that happens, one of the things that we start to notice and we know is that there’s a huge mobilization in terms of the military and in terms of police forces of neglecting or indicating kind of a lackluster support for guaranteeing security during the transition.

And that includes the fact that during the naming of his staff, lula tries to negotiate with the military by naming into the military establishments the generals that are the ones who have seniority and not someone who’s trusted by Lula. So as a way to compromise, lula, understanding this very difficult political context, tries to strike a compromise by saying, I will seed and let the key posts in the military be named by who has more seniority and not who’s more trusted by me. So neither the chief of police, neither the key military posts are really people close to the newly elected administration. It’s a very difficult context. Just today, as we speak today, we have found documents because the Supreme Court ordered inspection of the former police chief of Brazilia’s house and they discovered documents that there was a three page document actually outlining an order that would be admitted that would be used to justify the illegitimacy of the elections and justify an intervention to not allow the transition to take place. So we know that right now what we know is not only were there actual speeches made by these figures in the military and in the police, publicly and in social media, decrying the legitimacy of the elections, not ensuring security during the transition period.

But there’s actually now physical evidence that they had written documents to plan how they would precisely decree the non legitimacy of the election. So we know that this isn’t some theoretical conspiracy theory we have. There is actual evidence that they spent a lot of time working on the documents that would legitimize intervening and not transitioning power to who was democratically elected.

Sharmini Peries

Now, a lot of analysts looking at this situation knew that Lula really needed to get the military and the police under his wing in order to maintain stability once he took office. So these were really critical appointments. And it’s interesting that you focus in on that particular issue. Given all of this, how do you think Lula responded to the attacks and the unrest? And do you think it was proportional and will it discourage further attacks on his presidency?

Lorena Barberia

So, I think Lula was not physically in present in Brazilia during the attacks. He was in San Paolo on official business. He flew in that evening into Brazilian. But before flying in, he quickly mobilized and was really effective in calling all of the governors of the 26 states of Brazil, calling his cabinet, declaring in this case specifically of the federal district, removing the chief of police from being in charge of security. So kind of getting the legitimacy ready for first taking back these government offices, getting the police to be under supervisor, kind of an independent supervisor that came from the Ministry of justice that would supervise the state government of Brazilia, ensuring more transparency and more oversight over what was happening in the takeover back of these buildings. But I think what was really important is he made really a strong effort to build a coalition that in taking back and going back to Brazil, Brazilian him physically, he would go with the 26 governors, so he would go with the 26 governors, many of whom did not support him and supported Bolsonaro during the elections. And the idea was to signal that we believe in democracy, we believe in the rule of law, and we believe that also these people need to be prosecuted for the violent acts that they’re committing.

And we have strong consensus in Brazilian institutions about the way forward. And I think in this case, I think Lula came out very successfully. This really strengthened his position, strengthen the conversation that he’s having with the opposition in terms of understanding that we really need to think about a way to cooperate more in a very polarized context, but that we can’t allow the situation to become as violent as it has in Brazil. As we saw on Sunday.

Sharmini Peries

Now learn that many people have accused Bolsonaro and his supporters of drawing act and verse from the Trump playbook. As we speak, Bolsonaro is in the US. And on arrival he went to Mara Lago, and that’s in Florida where Trump lives. And we also know that he’s hospitalized at the moment with some stomach pains. But we also know that Steve Bannon, the far right mastermind of the Trump presidency, has been commenting on Bolsona narrow’s supporters as if they were some sort of freedom fighters. On Twitter and in his commentaries, some media has picked up on this. What are your thoughts on this?

Lorena Barberia

So I think this is really important to point out the geopolitics of this, right? It is really controversial if we think about the equivalent of what was happening in the US. Imagine if when all of this happened, trump fled to the UK. And from the UK. All of a sudden had people traveling back and forth from the US. To the UK. Maybe taking funds, maybe taking back secret intelligence, maybe doing other types of things internationally that are fueling attacks in Washington, DC. Right now. The difficulties for the US. And Brazil in this moment for us to think about is you have the President, who left on a diplomatic passport, who is now no longer in office, so doesn’t have the legitimacy to be in the US. Under a diplomatic passport, receiving visits from supporters from Brazil, returning back to Brazilia. These supporters have been seen during the protests, have been seen in some of these things. And you have we know Bolsonaro and his sons, his family met over 80 times with Steve Banyan. So I think there’s a lot of there’s a lot of issues that this raise of of discomfort, right. We have a long history of the US.

Intervening in Latin America. The US. Needs to send out a message about the support for democracy and how strongly it’s willing to support democracy in the region. And that includes monitoring when we have authoritarian tendencies and evidence, as we have in the case of Brazil and these leaders exile themselves to the US. How the US. Monitors what they’re doing in the US. And what funds or what other operations are occurring that might be if it was in the case of the US. This would be treated as something very diplomatically that we would be raising with authorities and foreign governments and expressing our discomfort about this issue. So I think it’s a really difficult issue for the US. Right now is why is Bolsonaro being allowed to kind of do and operate in the US. In a context that the same actions, the same type of activities would be considered violations of US. Sovereignty if the US Was witnessing similar things trump in a foreign country doing similar actions? So it’s a very difficult and uncomfortable situation for the US. And I think for Latin America right now. We’re looking at the Biden administration and asking a little bit.

We want to see kind of goodwill, and we want to build confidence in the transition in Brazil. That requires regional support for the Lula government. That goes beyond just lip service of sending out tweets saying transition needs to go forward in Brazil. It requires concrete actions. If there is financial transactions from the Bolsonaro government of funds being sent to Brazil, those need to be investigated. Some of the leaders in Brazil, in the opposition are already talking about if there is evidence of these types of things, this is the type of activity that needs to be his account. Bank accounts need to be frozen in the US. Those activities need to be investigated if they’re financing terrorism.

Sharmini Peries

Let’s pause for a moment and look back on Brazilian history. Now, one of the reasons that this rise of the far right in Brazil and its connections internationally is so alarming is because of really the very real history of Brazil and the military dictatorship of the past in Brazil. Take us back. What I guess, alarm bells goes off in your knowledge of political history and its alliance to the dictatorship of the past in Brazil?

Lorena Barberia

I think there’s two things that I think are very important to stress. First, Bolsonarodo and the rise of the Right is nothing new, right? We know throughout the history of Brazil, the Right, first the oligarchy and then elites and authoritarian elites governed that we have a strong history of the military governing in Brazil for a long period of time. And the right end during the transition to democracy in Brazil, unlike Argentina, for example, negotiated to have impunity, to not be punished, there was never trials in the case of Brazil of the military government and their activities. There wasn’t the type of transitional justice that we saw in other countries. And as a result, many of the people who we’re speaking about right now in the Bolsonaro government, who have been active and who have been supporting the questioning of the elections, are military, who have roots in authoritarian rule in Brazil prior to the transition to democracy. So we have learned to coexist with the right in Brazil. But the Right has a long history in Brazil and a long history of Russell having to manage, trying to navigate democracy with the Right. And that means that Lula, when we think about Lula’s first Presidency, he names a president from the right to govern as his vice president.

Because there’s this idea that and it’s very necessary that as someone from more progressive political party gets elected, he needs to bring the right along to ensure the legitimacy of having the left governed in Brazil. So I think we have a long history of compromising and working together across ideological extreme views. What’s different in this moment, and I think is important, is that the Right has become much more propense to undertake violent actions, to intimidate voters, to intimidate and impede due process, and to lie, in fact, in order to put people in jail to that extreme, in order to ensure to secure power. So the right is becoming really well comfortable with manipulating democratic processes in order to secure power. And that’s what makes it difficult for us in Brazil in this moment, is that it’s a very difficult conversation to have. We want to preserve democracy, we want to preserve the institutions, we want corruption to be investigated, we want judges to do the right thing and to kind of judge when people commit criminal acts. But at the same time, we also know that the military and the police and the right are not playing by the same rules, necessarily, and they’re manipulating information, they’re lying.

And afterwards we find evidence to show that there’s actual misinformation or disinformation and lies being used, when actually the evidence is showing no there was actually, as we’re just talking about now, on December, on January 8, they actually did have the document ready. It just so happened that it wasn’t as successful of an attack as they wanted, but the documents were ready to decree and not recognize the legitimacy of the election. And that’s been something that it took a lot of planning, it took a lot of discussions and agreement for you to get to the point that you have that type of consensus to actually bar the transition of someone who’s democratically elected. So we have a very difficult situation, but nothing new. I think that’s important to stress. The right has always existed in Brazil.

Sharmini Peries

Lorena, let’s take this up as our final point. The legislative Taiku are becoming somewhat trendy, and we know that Latin America is really the laboratory of the US. Empire and that previously, when Lula was accused of corruption and Judge Morrow took up his case and he was imprisoned, and then, of course, Lula handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff, was also impeached. These type of legislative coups are becoming more common, at least in Brazil. They’ve tested the ground. How much of a hand do you think external forces have in terms of what’s going on in Brazil and what is it we need to be alerted to and aware of?

Lorena Barberia

I think one thing that’s really important that we’re debating a lot at the moment in Brazil is about judicial activism. You alluded to to Judge Morrow, who launched the investigations into Lula and was responsible for prosecuting prosecuting him, and later he was exonerated for the charges that put him in jail because the evidence was actually proved to be not sufficient and the allegations didn’t hold. So I think now, similarly, in the January 8 uprising, there’s been very important actions that took place by the by the Supreme Court during the elections. The electoral courts were very important in terms of ensuring the security of the election and respect for the electoral process. But the judiciary and the activeness of the judiciary to mediate political conflict in a democracy is something important for us to be reflecting on. If we think about kind of that’s something that, on the one hand, judges, they’re not elected, they don’t represent us, and they’re in office for a long time. So when you have a society, a democracy, in which judges have a strong role and that role, it can be beneficial, but it can also be very dangerous. And I think that’s one of the things that we’re trying to grapple with in this moment is that because of judicial activism, we’ve had many of the bad things that have happened in Brazil politically.

And also some of the reasons that we’ve been able to get out of bad moments is because of judges and the judicial process. But is that the way to deliberate correctly, disagreement and political conflict in a democratic society, or is it something that we need to work through elections, through legislative debate, through the passing of laws, through the vetoing or the rejection of what is passed in the legislature. And I think there’s a lot of room for that in this moment to be debating is the people who uphold Lula. The best place for them to do that is in Congress through laws. And at the same time, for the people who support Lula and who want change, the best place for us to ensure that he’s able to govern is by getting a Congress as more representative of the types of policy reforms we want to see. And I think that actually, I’m more hopeful or I actually think that the Senate and strengthening Congress in this moment, it would be something beneficial because it’s something transparently we can monitor. We have oversight about how a law is being deliberated. What is the actual vote?

What are the implications of the law, whereas a lot of the judicial interpretations of the law can be really questionable, as we’ve seen in Brazil, evidence can be fabricated. A judge can read what he wants into the evidence, cite specific evidence, and ignore the rest of the evidence. And it takes many, many years often to overturn a judicial decision. So I think I’m more hopeful about the role of Congress and the executive and strengthening those institutions and more worried about the role of the judiciary.

Sharmini Peries

All right, Lorena, let’s leave it there. I’ve been speaking with Professor Lorena Barbarina, and she is coming to us from the University of San Paulo, Brazil. And, Lorina, we will definitely continue this conversation moving forward. I thank you so much for joining me today.

Lorena Barberia

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Sharmini Peries

And thank you for joining us here on the analysis.

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