Friday the 13th ended in Brasilia with the recently inaugurated president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 77, coming to thank in person the dozens of cleaning workers at the Planalto palace who left it as pristine as it was before a mass enraged by Bolsonaristas will take it by storm on Sunday.
The scene, turned by his official photographer into an emotional video for social networks, could be titled
Lula, with the people
.
That was the spirit.
His nemesis, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, 67, closed the day feeling the breath of justice on the back of his neck, suspected of encouraging the most serious assault on Brazilian democracy since the dictatorship.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Brazil has decided to investigate whether the far-right, who lost immunity on January 1, incited the violent invasion.
The start of Lula's third term could hardly be more turbulent.
The situation is extremely delicate, because the coup attempt had the complicity of the security forces.
Lula came to the weak Presidency, with an indisputable but meager victory, and at the head of a multicolored Government.
But what happened can also give the leftist the opportunity to divide Bolsonarismo, for the moderates to isolate the most radical.
Esther Solano, PhD in Social Sciences from the Federal University of São Paulo, explains that the assault on the powers that be has had various effects that favor President Lula politically.
With her call for institutional unity, she "has achieved the support of political and judicial forces and moderate Bolsonaro," she says.
“In the process of debugging responsibilities, several uncomfortable characters have fallen that he would otherwise have had to live with,” she adds.
A climate has settled in public opinion that calls for thorough investigation.
Bolsonaro has been included in the investigation undertaken by the Brazilian highest court and the Federal Police on account of a video that he posted on Facebook on Tuesday, two days after the attack, and deleted within hours.
For now he is not summoned to testify.
Recovered from the latest health crisis, he continues with his wife in Florida (USA), staying in the mansion of a former Brazilian wrestling professional.
Late on Friday he claimed his innocence, through his lawyer, and again condemned the assault.
The clip that has formally placed Bolsonaro in the crosshairs of justice is carried out by a follower.
It reproduces a conspiracy theory that amounts to the Brazilian version of Trump's
great lie
: it repeats that Lula did not win the elections, but that he reached the top of power at the hands of the Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Tribunal.
The Supreme Court judge who signed the order to investigate it (also the star protagonist of the plot) says in the ruling that "public figures who continue to cowardly conspire against democracy to try to create a state of emergency will be held responsible."
The magistrate in question, Alexander de Moraes, 54 years old and with the manners of a sheriff, leads the investigations from the Supreme Court to neutralize radical Bolsonaro and save democracy.
During the elections, he made that role compatible with that of the highest electoral authority.
He is the other great enemy of the former president and his most ultra-followers;
They consider him the great dictator, the plague, more powerful and dangerous than Lula.
Democrats admire him, but feel that he sometimes borders on abuse of power.
While President Lula was once again dispatching his ministers —whom he wants focused on offering soon tangible results to alleviate the countless needs of the Brazilian people— the judges sent 1,200 Bolsonaro supporters to jail who staged scenes of unprecedented vandalism against institutions in Brazil or that they cheered while they took
selfies
in full chaos.
They face accusations such as terrorism —a phenomenon that was exotic in these lands— or the violent abolition of the democratic state.
Convinced that they are good people, it is probable that, not even in their worst nightmare, they could imagine being imprisoned in jail.
Handshake with a Bolsonaro governor
Lula shared a priceless image of this intense week: a handshake and half a smile with the 47-year-old governor of wealthy São Paulo, Tarcisio Freitas, the most powerful Bolsonaro supporter in Bolsonaro's absence.
Military, the followers of the ultra see him as a firm candidate for succession if the leader were to fall.
I spoke today with the governor of São Paulo, @tarcisiogdf.
In the campaign, I believe that I respect and work with all the governors, for the good of Brazil.
What are we doing?
📸: @ricardostuckert pic.twitter.com/SI9B09OBGm
— Lula (@LulaOficial) January 11, 2023
In a plot that, as always in Brazil, is convoluted, the only political person in charge arrested for the assault was almost 6,000 kilometers from Brasilia, in Florida that day.
Anderson Torres, the head of public security in the DF, who turned himself in to the police this Saturday as soon as he landed in the Brazilian capital, could be crucial in unraveling the skein.
He is emerging as a source that could frame the previous president.
Lula's allies salivate at the idea.
Torres, a 47-year-old police officer and former Bolsonaro justice minister, fired some senior officers and went on a family vacation to sunny Orlando.
He is credited with the decision to leave the offices of the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court unprotected, which has also brought down the governor.
Torres is also the alleged author of a draft presidential decree located by the police that contemplated intervening in the Superior Electoral Court to reverse the result of the last elections.
The sociologist Solano maintains that Lula should insist in his speech "of unity, that the attack was the work of a radical minority against a majority of the people who want peace and stability, that the law will be applied so that those responsible, especially those ringleaders, be punished."
In the opinion of this specialist, the president will try to take advantage of the circumstances to cause a schism in Bolsonarismo, for the moderates to repudiate the extremists who staged a coup attempt typical of the 21st century after two months demanding a classic coup from the military.
It is always important in Brazil not to lose sight of what is happening in the universe of social networks, a parallel galaxy that is difficult to understand for the analogue Lula.
On social networks such as Whatsapp, Facebook or Instagram, lies are circulating that permeate a good part of his compatriots, although he finds it amazing.
Mr. Edson, a retiree who still works to complete his Navy service pension, is one of the many Bolsonaro supporters consulted who describe the assault in identical terms: “Sunday was outrageous.
But… the leftists started it.
When those from the headquarters (the coup protesters) arrived at the square, those from the PT (Workers' Party) were already there, destroying everything”, he explains with conviction.
Bolsonaro himself has spoken of infiltrators in his note to defend his innocence.
Even for Bolsonaro's flight to Florida, the retiree has an explanation that satisfies him: “He did well to leave because, if he stays, they arrest him.
He hasn't stolen or anything.
On the other hand, those from Congress, the Supreme Court and the PT Government are all a gang of criminals”.
Edson is from Bahia, black.
Probably,
O King.
The Prosecutor's Office requested that Bolsonaro be included in the investigations because it considers him "an unleashed figure in the disinformation echo chamber."
Even the most critical of him recognize the effectiveness of his machine for manufacturing lies.
Bolsonarismo quickly spreads a unified discourse that is solid in the ears of millions.
Lula's team's digital strategy has improved dramatically since the campaign, but in that battle it remains far behind its adversary.
The scenes of the invasion caused fright.
Gilvan Viana Xavier—a high-ranking Senate police officer whose team failed to prevent the invasion but arrested 38 people—described to his interrogators the virulence of the assailants, dressed in national colors.
They devastated the furniture, the security cameras, the works of art... of the building that came out of the pencils of the architect Oscar Niemeyer.
“They shouted 'Military intervention', 'our flag will never be red' (which rhymes in Portuguese) and 'a criminal will never be president', according to the newspaper
O Globo
.
In Brazil, it is never convenient to rule out anything, but the Lula government seems more inclined for Bolsonaro to be neutralized via disqualification from running in the next elections.
They fear that a hypothetical entry into prison would inflame their own and reinforce it.
But, if the mood of public opinion changed, it would be another story.
Lula completes this Sunday the second week of his four-year term.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS America
newsletter
and receive all the latest news in the region.