Jair Bolsonaro’s attacks on CPI Covid, the electoral process and the judiciary threaten democracy and are part of the president’s deliberate strategy to try to maintain power. Political scientist and USP Ph.D. professor Maria Teresa Sadek, accused of corruption and declining popularity, estimates that the president is planning a coup d’état.

“All of this denial is a political strategy,” says the professor who headed the CNJ’s forensic research department from 2016 to 2018. “All institutions and society must respond decisively.”

The main excerpts from the interview are as follows:

How do you assess Bolsonar’s criticism of the CPI, STF ministers and their threats to the electoral process?

He worked to cover all institutions as much as possible. And he will continue to do so gradually, if there is no appropriate response from institutions and society. What puts us in a dangerous situation is that neither the Legislative nor the Federal State Ministry has acted in this direction. How can we not have elections? He played with this story of fraud for a long time. If he wanted to, he could check the ballot boxes in the electoral machine, but he doesn’t. This process of denial is a political strategy. Because he knows he is losing public support, he gambles, but in a very dangerous way, jeopardizing the democratic rule of law.

What is the purpose of this political game?

The main goal is to try to blur the electoral process, he knows that he no longer has a chance to win. He plays early to see if the situation repeats in the US (Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol earlier this year, claiming Joe Biden’s victory was a fraud; the conflict killed 5 people and injured dozens). We are at a delicate point in Brazilian politics.

What are the risks? Is the president rehearsing a coup?

Yes, but we must think about what protects the state and society itself, so that this does not happen. He even tries to use the Armed Forces, which he calls “his”. The note from the Armed Forces (in the tone of the KPI threat) is very serious. What is needed here is not rhetoric, but an energetic reaction. The statements by the President of the Congress (Rodrigo Pacheco) and the President of the Supreme Electoral Court (Luis Roberto Barroso) are an important start.

What should be this reaction?

From all living forces of the Nation; the judiciary, the legislature, the press, civil society, all institutions must respond. One way is impeachment; for this you need to put pressure on the mayor (Arthur Lear). Another way is denunciation by the prosecutor’s office, but Aras (the republic’s general prosecutor) also did not fulfill this role. If there is no pressure from society, the situation is unlikely to change.