The assassination of PT treasurer and municipal guard Marcelo Aloisio de Arruda in Foz do Iguacu (PR) this Sunday (10) by a Bolsonarist prison guard sent a shock wave through the non-presidential political class and raised fears of more episodes. y election campaign violence, during which several incidents and moments of tension have already been recorded.
In recent weeks, the events of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have already come under attack. In one of them, a drone released a foul-smelling liquid against PT supporters in Uberland (MG). In another case, a pipe bomb was detonated by Lula in Rio de Janeiro. Abreu’s killer, criminal police officer Jorge José da Rocha Guaragno, accurately reproduced Bolsonarist’s primer online,
Last week, the Observatory for Monitoring Electoral Risks in Brazil (Demos), an organization of more than 30 experts from various fields, condemned Jair Bolsonaro’s attacks on institutions, including the judiciary, in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. , press and political movements, social.
In an interview with DW Brasil, lawyer Emilio Peluso Meyer, a member of the Demos Executive Committee and professor of constitutional law at UFMG, states that there is a connection between Bolsonaro’s speech, which incites supporters to commit acts of violence against opponents, and plans for an institutional break.
In addition, Meyer says the current president could be held accountable for escalating political violence and that the risk of a terrorist attack on former President Lulu needs to be taken seriously.
DW Brasil: The escalation of political violence in Brazil this Sunday had another chapter linked to Bolsonarist’s assassination of Marcelo Arruda, PT’s municipal treasurer. How does political violence intertwine with the working methods of the Bolsonaro government?
Emilio Peluso Meyer: We see a pattern in Bolsonaro’s government, in presidential rhetoric, a lot of understanding of the political process, as if it were a process in which a political dissident or a political oppositionist should be eliminated from the political process.
This type of discourse not only focuses on the meaning of withdrawing the opposition, the left, or any other enemy from the political process, but also operates in such a way that, in the end, suppression actually turns into physical suppression. .
Suffice it to recall the President’s speech in October 2018, in which he said that he should take the members of the Workers’ Party “to the edge of the beach”, alluding to the term dictatorship, which referred to the place for which the bodies of political dissidents were taken and liquidated by the repressive system.
When this rhetoric is repeated, it will have a political effect, which we will see in the rise of political violence.
When this is conveyed by a public figure who holds the office of President of the Republic, the ability of a person to receive this information and think that he needs to put this information into practice is much higher. It takes on the contours of seriousness, something that can or must definitely happen, as it did this Sunday.
Can President Jair Bolsonaro be directly responsible for these incidents of violence?
Speaking in the broadest sense, about moral responsibility, the president actually sets fire to his supporters for the practical elimination of a political opponent.
He is a president who has been working all the time to create, through decrees, the possibility of widespread access to weapons in Brazil.
And this access allows a person who is constantly being pressured to think that politics should be enforced, that he should act when he feels attacked or insulted, because, for example, someone decided to celebrate his birthday with a photo of an ex. President Lula.
This attitude on the part of Bolsonaro gives at least a moral responsibility. But we need to be able to think about political accountability, but in a Chamber of Deputies dominated by Centrão and the logic of a secret budget, this is not possible until the end of this year.
Last week, Japanese candidate and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was killed in an attack. What are the risks of something of this magnitude happening in the Brazilian elections? Lula, who is usually the biggest target for boleronists, is there any risk?
Be sure to run. If President Bolsonaro himself, the candidate in 2018, has become someone vulnerable to political attack, much more is a target for someone like Lula.
Just think that the former president had a huge impact on the political history of Brazil for at least 40 years, reaching the end of the dictatorship, with the trade union movement that was fundamental to the fall of this regime. It is imperative that the former president and the Workers’ Party take every precaution and strive to ensure or maintain his integrity and security, at least until the end of this electoral process.
You mentioned the blow dealt by Bolsonaro in 2018. Is there any difference between this attack and the attacks on the PT in recent weeks? Or is it all part of a political war?
The Brazilian case has always been an example of widespread social and political instability that has affected and continues to affect several segments of the population, but today is reaching a higher level. It was already in place during the 20th century, but perhaps the transition from 1987 to 1988 that gave birth to the Federal Constitution tried to bring the water to a boil with conciliations, some of them even at bad tack for the political process as a whole. .
But it did cause political violence at the federal level to cool down for a while. In the 1990s and 2000s, we didn’t have that kind of anxiety.
Perhaps since 2014, Operation Car Wash, with the idea that political corruption needs to be dealt with immediately and permanently, has created the conditions for this more violent discourse to gain more space in the political arena. So this discourse starts to take a central role in the course of Brazilian politics and you have something like the attack on Bolsonaro in 2018. Stabbing needs to be taken seriously because it is a situation of political violence.
The consequence of this is that you will have a serious increase in how you react to it. In other words, according to Bolsonarist’s reasoning, if the president has already been stabbed, is it possible for his supporters to resort to violence? His speech rings true.
Bolsonaro again cited a stab wound this Sunday. He said that he does not support people who commit acts of violence against opponents, but then he himself turned to attacks on the left, claiming that he was responsible for the violent episodes. How do you view this position?
Bolsonarism, as a political movement, usually blames opponents for the actions it usually takes. This is a fundamental point.
I am not saying that militants or members of the PT have not presented themselves in the past as the only possible political option. This may have happened, but is not the determining factor in creating this polarization leading to the practice of acts of violence.
You have not seen such rhetoric intensified by former President Lula or former President Dilma Rousseff. I think it’s kind of a fragile accusation, but it’s part of the construction of some ghosts, justifications for what happened recently.
In fact, we have noticed that this polarization has settled into an unbearable level, and I don’t know if it makes sense for the current process to try to find its seed. Today it makes sense to understand who are the people who consider it important that violence be shaped in Brazilian politics. That’s the problem.
And I do not see in the wide Brazilian political spectrum of more than 30 parties that it does not come from the president himself and his inner circle. And then, with a certain tolerance on the part of institutions such as the Armed Forces themselves, which also do not seek to dissociate themselves from this kind of discourse.
Will this physical violence be the first step towards Bolsonaro’s institutional upheaval? Is it a direct link?
Connection is key. It is straightforward in the following sense: what does the President of the Republic need to make a more radical decision or feel justified in making a decision such as a decree on a state of defense or a state of siege?
What the president wants is social upheaval, to be justified in making a radical decision because he is not in control of what is happening in the country. It cannot be said that the president wants or desires what happened this Sunday. I don’t think this is something you can see in your direct action.
But the implication of such facts is that you have a much more heated political scenario, which can put pressure on or create conditions for the president to make a decision that will lead to institutional collapse.
Political discourse is ignited, access to weapons in the country is promised and expanded, political action is ignited by the military and security forces (military, civilian, traffic, federal police). Then all this context of repeated amplification of what could become political chaos is created. For what?
It has only one goal: a constitutional break. And we don’t imagine too much. The president wants it, wants it. He doesn’t want any other alternative.
And what would be the way out to avoid an institutional break?
I hope this Sunday’s unfortunate event will cause political damage to the President of the Republic and to those who are physically supporting this type of violence. The key is that the authorities, in a variety of capacities, are thwarting this attempt to find conciliatory solutions to sentiments of widespread violence that must be effectively rejected.
I think that the Presidents of the House and the Senate have a fundamental role to play, which unfortunately are omitted in several of these cases, I think that the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) and the Federal Supreme Court (STF) have taken a tougher stance in this aspect.
And then it is important that the population realizes that criticizing the Supreme Court and the TSE is exactly what the president wants – all these institutions have limitations, they have problems, but they are necessary for the functioning of democracy in Brazil.
