Luiz Fux, president of the Brazilian Supreme Court, together with Bolsonaro on February 1 in Brasilia during the opening ceremony of the judicial year.Fellipe Sampaio / SCO / STF / STF
The Supreme Court of Brazil, the institution that has concentrated the anger of Bolsonarism in recent times, has responded this Wednesday with forcefulness to the threats launched the day before by the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, before tens of thousands of his followers.
After the ultra-rightist said that he intends to disobey the orders of the highest court, the president of the court, Luiz Fux, has accused him of attacking democracy and warned that "the Supreme Court will not tolerate threats to the authority of its decisions ”.
Fux has added that if Bolsonaro makes good on his threat to disobey, he will be charged with a crime against the Constitution that would be tried by Congress.
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That of the President of the Supreme Court has been the harshest reaction, but not the only one, to Bolsonaro's belligerent speech during the show of force that he starred on Tuesday with massive demonstrations in São Paulo and Brasilia.
The markets have reacted badly in the reopening after the holiday on Tuesday, Independence Day.
The stock market fell this afternoon around 3%.
And the dollar has risen, so it is trading at 5.3 reais.
The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, an ally of Bolsonaro, has also made a statement, but in a more tepid tone than that of the magistrate;
basically he has called for the end of the rhetorical escalation and harmony between the powers.
The highest Brazilian court is an active political actor, especially since the investigations of recent years against corruption.
The president of the Supreme Court, a career magistrate unlike some of the 11 remaining members of the court, has spoken in unusually harsh and explicit terms on him and on Brazilian politics.
Fux has stated bluntly: "this Court is going to close."
He has also accused the head of state of having crossed the threshold of legitimate criticism, of “instigating hatred” and of “practicing a politics of chaos”.
Bolsonaro's method of governing requires enemies to keep the ranks of the hard core of his followers tight.
And even more so now, that he has been watching for months how he loses support and increases the rejection against him, according to the polls to which the Brazilians are so fond.
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With polarization consolidated and the president in a constant offensive against institutions that erode democracy, the demands for
impeachment
they accumulate at the table of the president of the Chamber of Deputies, the person who has the power to process them. And to make sure that doesn't happen, Bolsonaro managed to place an ally in the job. In his speech this Wednesday, Lira has criticized "radicalisms and excesses" and has urged President Bolsonaro not to insist more on asking for changes to the voting system. “I cannot admit the questioning of decisions already taken and passed, such as the printed vote. Once decided, we have to turn the page ”, he said, referring to the proposal sponsored by Bolsonaro that the deputies rejected a few weeks ago. Lira is one of the leaders of Centrão, who embodies the old politics that Bolsonaro said he wanted to fight. His is not an ideological alliance but an alliance of interests.
During the almost three years that Bolsonaro has been in power, there are many times that his coup threats have set off alarms, but those alerts are increasingly sources. The analyst Oliver Stuenkel, from the Getulio Vargas Foundation, writes in an article published in EL PAÍS Brasil that, “more than an immediate democratic breakdown, the greatest risk is a permanent constitutional crisis, which consumes the country without advancing in any relevant political agenda ”.
The high court is now the main target of the attacks of the president and his faithful as it was at the beginning of the legislature the Congress. The investigation that the Supreme Court opened a long time ago against Bolsonarista networks that spread false news and disinformation campaigns on the Internet and the recent arrests of several Bolsonaro followers accused of threatening the magistrates and financing anti-democratic acts have touched a nerve in the president and the movement that brought him to power almost three years ago. Those who took to the streets on Tuesday argue that Brazil suffers "a dictatorship of robes" because of the Supreme Court, which they accuse of curtailing freedom of expression.
Although the pandemic persists and there is more than a year for the elections, the atmosphere between politicians and the press is clearly one of pre-electoral campaign. This Sunday a new demonstration is planned. The organizers are not the usual ones - Bolsonaro and the left movements - but the Brasil Livre Movement, created by a group of young right-wing liberals that got the public to mobilize to oust the leftist Dilma Rousseff from power. Although they supported Bolsonaro's election, they have now distanced themselves from him. Like a good part of the economic power, disenchanted with Bolsonaro because he has not carried out the liberalizing reforms he promised, they are in favor of a third way, but despite the effort, months pass and it does not work. Except surprise,The 2022 elections will be a duel between Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
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