Brazil thread 2023-

[Pivaru]

Tomorrow, the newly elected members of the National Congress will be sworn in, then, the senate and the chamber of deputies will both have an election for president.

In the lower chamber (Chamber of Deputies), it is expected that Arthur Lira (Progressistas), the incumbent president, will get reelected, some of his allies are expecting him to get up to 90% of the votes. Lira was able to create a broad coalition in the chamber, the centrão is supporting him, Bolsonaro's PL is supporting him, Lula's PT is supporting him.

The only other declared candidate so far is Chico Alencar (PSOL), who wants to oppose Lira from the left. Alencar has been pretty vocal about how he feels it is dangerous to give Lira this much power, warning that, if he gets more than 400 votes, he could end up having a lot of influence in the government. It's also likely that Marcel Van Hattem (Novo) will run and oppose Lira from a libertarian position. Both of these candidates have no chance though.
The election in the senate is more interesting, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD) is running for reelection, but different from Lira, he has not been able to get a broad coalition. The right has united behind senator Rogério Marinho (PL). There's also a third candidate, Eduardo Girão (Podemos), but he's not going to win, his only objective seems to be preventing that either Pacheco or Marinho win on a first round vote.

Pacheco is expected to win, he has support from the government parties (PT, PDT, Rede, Cidadania, PSB) and also some centrão parties (MDB and his own party, PSD). Marinho on the other hand has the support of his own party and a few others which supported Bolsonaro during his presidency (PSC, Progressistas, Republicanos). There are still a few parties which have not taken an official position on the election, most notably União Brasil, Podemos and PSDB.

At the end of the day, it's not inconceivable that Marinho could get the presidency, but it'd require almost unanimous support from the neutral parties and/or for some of the senators on parties that support Pacheco, like MDB, to defect.

Edit: Van Hattem announced his candidacy for the presidency of the lower house some minutes ago. As for the race in the senate, 3 senators from Pacheco's party declared they'll support Marinho. Some other senators, such as Alessandro Vieira and Izalci Lucas, both from PSDB, also said they'll vote for Marinho.

[Pivaru]

The election for president of the chamber of representatives and for the president of the senate should be starting in 30 minutes to 1 hour. The general consensus seems to be that Marinho has the momentum in the senate. Yesterday, Pacheco's group estimated that he'd get something like 55 votes, now they're expecting around 46, only 5 above the necessary 41. While there have been some defection from MDB and PSD who announced they'll support Marinho, Pachecho is expecting 2 PL senators to vote for him.

Marinho's group are saying that they've already overtaken Pacheco, claiming they have around 38 votes while Pacheco has 35 (the other 8 are undecided according to them). One of Marinho's allies, senator Magno Malta estimates that, in the end, Marinho should end up winning with 43 votes.

Eduardo Girão has said he expects at least 10 votes for him.

Pacheco has been trying to get some support back by saying that he's open to debating reforms to the supreme court, most notably term limits and limitations to monocratic decisions by court members. It's a way  to try to attract the vote of Bolsonaristas.

According to Globo, supreme court members have been paying attention to the race in the senate. In their view, if Marinho gets more than 30 votes, that'd mean that the Bolsonaristas have enough strength to open a parliamentary commission of inquiry investigating the perceived abuses of authority by the court. Still according to Globo, some justices are reportedly making calls to senators to ask for votes for Pacheco, arguing that his reelection is fundamental for a more peaceful relation between the three powers.

Edit: It started, Girão gave up his candidacy in favor of Marinho.

[Pivaru]

Arthur Lira (PP) has been reelected as president of the chamber of deputies with 464 votes. Chico Alencar (PSOL) got 21, Marcel Van Hattem (Novo) got 19. 5 blank votes.

That's the most votes someone got for president of the chamber in history.

[Pivaru]

Espirito Santo senator Marcos do Val (Podemos) denounced a planned coup attempt today. Do Val said he received a proposal by former federal deputy, Daniel Silveira (PTB), a radical bolsonarista. The plan was for Marcos to record a conversation between himself and supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, the senator would then try to steer to conversation to a route that lead to Moraes saying something objectionable, something that went against the constitution. The idea was for the tape to be released and then Moraes would get jailed, leading to a chain of event which culminated in Lula not getting sworn in.

Do Val initially said that he'd resign as senator, but now CNN is reporting that he actually hasn't decided yet if he'll actually do it. He also initially said Bolsonaro was also involved, but then walked back on his word, now he's saying that the former president had nothing to do with the plot, pinning the blame solely on Silveira. Moraes has ordered police to interview Do Val in 5 days at most.

After this all came to light, Silveira was arrested and it seems like the possibility of the senate opening an investigation in relation to the post-election antidemocratic acts is high. The president of PL, Bolsonaro's party, Valdemar Costa Neto, will be talking to police later today. Last month he said something to the effect of "everyone in the party had documents related to a coup attempt" after. Bolsonaro's former minister of justice, Anderson Torres, who was arrested following the Jan 8 attacks, will also get interrogated by police today (they already tried to talk to him once back in January 18, but he stayed silent in that occasion).

[Pivaru]

Ipec released their first approval rating polling for Lula today, results were:

Good/great - 41%
Regular - 30%
Bad/terrible - 24%

These numbers are better than Bolsonaro's back in March of 2019 (he had 34% good/great, 34% regular and 24% bad/terrible), but worse than his own numbers in March of 2003 and March of 2007.

They also asked a few other questions. The first one was in regards to the international community's view of Brazil, they asked if, now that the country has a new government, it once again gained the respect from the rest of the world, 47% agreed while 44% disagreed.

Ipec also asked about the January 8 attack to congress and Bolsonaro's relation to it. 51% say that the former president has no responsibility, 22% say he should be prosecuted and lose his right to run for office, 19% say Bolsonaro should be prosecuted and arrested.

Finally, they also asked if people think Brazil has a chance of becoming communist and found that 44% think so, 48% disagree. Evangelicals seem to be the group that believes in this the most, 57% of them thought this is possible.

[Pivaru]

Nine people were arrested yesterday after the police uncovered a plot to kidnap and assassinate former operation car wash judge and senator Sergio Moro, his wife, Rosangela Moro, their kids and attorney Lincoln Gakiya. All the preparators were associated with PCC, Brazil's largest criminal organization and their reasoning for the planned attack was unrelated to politics. The timing of this even was a bit unfortunate for Lula, just the day before, he said that "things will only be fine when I f--- with Moro", now, in fairness to him, Lula did mention that this is only what he thought during his time in prison, but still, it's not a very good look. Flavio Dino, the Minister of Justice, criticized people trying to politicize the situation, however, that's a bit hard to do when Lula himself decided that it'd be a cool idea to say today that he "thinks the whole thing was set up by Moro".

Don't get me wrong, this won't destroy Lula's government or anything like that, of course, but like, what? All this does is give the opposition something to attack him with, hurt the conciliatory "love and peace" image he tried to build during the election campaign and give people material to create conspiracy theories about how "the left is trying to kill Moro to get vengeance".

On other news, ever since Lula got into office, there's been tension between his government and Roberto Campos Neto, the president of the Central Bank of Brazil, over the interest rates, which are currently 13.75%. The government's strategy so far has been to demonize Neto for not decreasing the rates, pinning the blame for the country's poor economic performance on him, otherwise, people would start blaming Lula. After Neto and his team decided to not change the interest rates yesterday, the government has decided to pressure the senate to remove Neto before 2024, however, they've already been warned by Rodrigo Pacheco, the president of the senate, that they don't have the votes for this at the moment.

[Pivaru]

G1 has reported today that Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski will be resigning after Easter. He's going to turn 75 in May, so he was going to have to retire anyway. Lula will have to appoint someone to fill Lewandowski's place and his main objective seems to be getting someone young in the court.

A few names have been floated so far but I've seen three of them appearing the most. The first one is that of Manoel Carlos de Almeida Neto, who's Lewandowski's advisor, naturally, he has the retiring justice's backing. The second name is that of Bruno Dantas, president of the Federal Court of Accounts, his name seems to be the most liked one by the congress, senator Renan Calheiros (MDB), one of Lula's main allies in the upper house, is fond of this option. The final name is that of Cristiano Zanin, notable for being Lula's lawyer during Operation Car Wash and... well, for being Lula's lawyer during Operation Car Wash, that's it.

After Lula picks a name, they have to be approved by the senate, though historically, this whole process has been one giant formality which ends up with a giant rubber stamp of approval from the senators. The last time they rejected someone was back in 1894 (in fact, all five rejections happened this year). That said, there does seem to be some worry that Zanin in particular is too personally tied to Lula and due to that, the ensuing process in the senate could turn out to be a bit of a headache. I personally hope Zanin doesn't get the job, but it does seem like he's the favorite at the moment.

In October, Justice Rosa Weber will turn 75, giving Lula a second opportunity to appoint someone to the court. This will also be his final appointment during this term unless one of the other justices dies or decides to resign. The expectation is that Lula will appoint a woman to succeed Rosa.

[Pivaru]

The first Datafolha poll on Lula's approval rating was released today:

Good/great - 38%
Regular - 30%
Bad/terrible - 29%

Just like with Ipec, these numbers are better than what Bolsonaro had back in 2019, but worse than Lula's numbers back at the start of his first and second term.

Datafolha also asked if people thought Lula did more or less than they expected so far:

Did more than they expected - 18%
Did as much as they expected - 25%
Did less than they expected - 51%

They also asked people about their expectations for the government going forward:

50% say they think it'll be good or great
27% think it'll be regular
21% think it'll be bad or terrible

The last question was about whether people think Lula will keep his campaign promises:

28% think he'll achieve most of them
50% think he'll achieve some, but not most
21% think he'll achieve none of his promises

[Pivaru]

Three days ago, on the 11th, the government announced they'd end the tax exemption for the importation of some international goods. Brazil has a 60% tax on foreign imports, but up until now, if the import was between two natural persons and the cost of the item was less than US$50, the tax wasn't applied. This change should end up affecting the prices of items on websites like Shein, AliExpress and Shopee, which have grown in popularity in the country over the past few years.

The opposition has taken to opportunity to attack Lula. The government on the other hand has been trying to do some damage control, their justification for the change is that they want to crack down on tax fraud by companies. Lula's wife, Janja, has been tweeting about how this will "only affect business, not ordinary people" (one of the tweets got marked for misinformation earlier but apparently they removed it) and according to Folha de São Paulo, the government has been mobilizing influencers to try to get the word out. I'm not entirely sure how effective they've been though, it certainly feels that this has soured some people. If nothing else, I will point out the circumstantial evidence that the people in my social circle who voted for Lula are all not happy with this change.

This and Lula's asinine take on the Moro assassination plot last month seem to be the biggest sources of disappointment with the government so far.

In other news, yesterday, MPE, the Electoral Public Ministry, defended that Bolsonaro should become ineligible for sowing doubt over the efficiency of the electronic voting machines. There are 15 or so cases against the former president making their way through the Superior Electoral Court and it is expected that he'll be judged sometime in the month of May.

Bolsonaro and his allies have already devised a plan if he does end up becoming ineligible, they'll just do exactly what Lula did between 2018 and 2021. The plan is to just use every single resource available, go to the Supreme Court and ask for dozens upon dozens of legal recourses. Their hope is that, eventually, one of their recourses will end up on the hands of someone like Justice Kassio Nunes, who was appointed by Bolsonaro and has, in the past, ruled in favor of bolsonarista politicians who were accused of other crimes.

They also plan for Bolsonaro to be active in next year's mayoral election. His endorsements could be fairly powerful, specially in the south and southeast. PL's calculations are that, if the party does well next year, that could pressure the Supreme Court into making the former president eligible again before the 2026 election. Oh, and of course, they'll accuse the justice system of doing a witch hunt, the usual narrative.

[Pivaru]

Today, CNN released some videos relating to the January 8 invasion. The images show many employees of the Institutional Security Bureau of the Presidency of the Republic (known in Portuguese just as GSI) walking around and just not doing much to contain the whole situation, some are even seen offering water and doing small talk with the invaders. The guy Lula appointed to head GSI, Gonçalves Dias, also appears in the footage, he walks around, tries opening some doors, goes away, reappears with some vandals following him, appears to tell them where the exit is, and just goes away again.

A statement was released by GSI arguing that their employees were trying to evacuate the 4th and 3rd floors, concentrating all the invaders in the 2nd floor until the cops arrived to arrest them. They did also mention that they were investigating the possibility of employees helping the criminals. GSI mentioned that they did not authorize the released of this footage for the public.

Gonçalves Dias isn't mentioned at all in the statement. He was supposed to appear in a hearing in the Chamber of Deputies today, but didn't go, according to him, he had to go to the doctor due to an "acute clinical case". The Chamber's Commission of Public Security has summoned him just now, if he doesn't appear this time it'll be a crime, Dias is supposed to go on the 26th. Lula called for a meeting regarding this whole incident, Dias has been told now that his situation is unsustainable and that he should resign.

The opposition is going to use this to imply that January 8 was either an inside job, or that the government let it happen even though they knew it was coming, you know, the usual stuff. For the past months, there's been an effort by the bolsonaristas to start a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (known in portuguese as CPI) investigating the acts, but the government has been opposed to that and President of the Senate Rodrigo Pacheco has been trying to prevent it from happening. Bolsonaristas are already using this episode to argue to the CPI again and they have promised "total obstruction" if Pacheco continues preventing it.

Edit: Gonçalves has resigned, he's the first of Lula's ministers to fall.

Another edit: after what happened today, Senator Randolfe Rodrigues, the government's leader in congress, has come out in support of a CPI investigating January 8. From what I've heard, Zeca Dirceu, PT's leader in the Chamber of Deputies, said the government's position is that they still don't support a CPI, senator Omar Aziz has also said the same, but the evaluation is that it'll be installed regardless of what the government wants.

Three days ago, on the 11th, the government announced they'd end the tax exemption for the importation of some international goods. Brazil has a 60% tax on foreign imports, but up until now, if the import was between two natural persons and the cost of the item was less than US$50, the tax wasn't applied. This change should end up affecting the prices of items on websites like Shein, AliExpress and Shopee, which have grown in popularity in the country over the past few years.

Also, just a follow up on this. The whole strategy of trying to get internet influencers to defend it doesn't seem to have worked all that well, at least not enough for the government's liking. Yesterday, Lula asked Haddad to forget the plan of removing the tax exemption due to the backlash received. Haddad did say they'll find other solutions to combat tax fraud.

[Pivaru]

New Genial/Quaest poll, their last one was in February:

Lula's approval rating:
Approve - 36% (-4)
Neutral - 29% (+5)
Disapprove - 29% (+9)
Don't know/didn't answer - 6% (-10)

The fall in his approval rating doesn't come from people who voted for Lula abandoning him, 68% of those who voted for him still approve the president (down from 69% in February). It has to do with Bolsonaro voters who gave him the benefit of the doubt as first turning against him, 60% disapproved of his government (up from 51% last time).

The poll also has his approval ratings by region, gender, age. education, income, race and religion.

Approval of Lula's behavior as president:
Approve - 53% (-12)
Disapprove - 40% (+11)
Don't know/didn't answer - 7% (+1)

Is Lula well intentioned:
Yes - 53%
No - 40%
Don't know/didn't answer - 7%

Do you think Lula has been able to do what he promised during the campaign?
No - 55%
Yes - 35%
Don't know/didn't answer - 9%

They also asked if people had heard bad news about Lula's government, 44% said they had, 34% said they hadn't. When asked about what was the most negative news they heard, a plurality (16%) answered the proposal to end the tax exemption on imported goods.

Expectation of the country's economy in the next 12 months:
It'll get better - 51% (-11)
It'll get worse - 29% (+9)
It'll stay the same - 16% (+2)
Don't know/didn't answer - 4% (-)

Even though most people still expect the economy to get better, a plurality expect unemployment and inflation to rise (43% and 49% respectively).

[Pivaru]

A few days ago, it was confirmed that there'll be a Mixed Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry investigating the January 8 attacks (I'll just call it the January 8 CPMI since that's how most of the media refers to it), it is expected that it'll officially get installed next week. The commission will have 32 members, 16 of them will be senators and 16 will be federal deputies and afaik, it'll last 180 days.

Since last week, the media has already been speculating about who'll participate on the CPMI and some parties have already started to appoint members. I've seen reports that Bolsonaro wants his two sons, Eduardo (federal deputy) and Flávio (senator) to participate so there will be someone in the commission who'll consistently defend the former president (I mean, I think other PL politicians will do the same but whatever). I'm pretty sure Eduardo will end up participating but I'm not sure if Flávio will end getting appointed, it seems like PL will have 2 of the 16 seats in the senate and the party has been considering at least 3 other members in addition to Flávio

In the Chamber of Deputies, it seems like PL will have 3 seats. Alexandre Ramagem seems like someone who is almost guaranteed to get appointed (even more so than Eduardo) he was the Director of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency from 2019 until 2022. Ramagem believes there was negligence on the federal government's part when defending the Praça dos Três Poderes, the opposition seems to banking on him to make this narrative stick.

The government has some people they really want to see participating in the CPMI. Senators Renan Calheiros from MDB and Randolfe Rodrigues from Rede are seen as two important potential members, they had a big participation two years ago in attacking Bolsonaro during the Covid CPI, so the hope is that they'll do it again here. They also hope senators Omar Aziz and Otto Alencar, both from PSD, will also get appointed for the same reason as the previous two. That said, afaik, PSD only has 2 of the 16 seats in the senate and one of those is probably going to Eliziane Gama, so there's some female representation, so it's possible either Aziz or Alencar will not participate this time.

Federal Deputy André Janones is another name I've heard the government wants in the CPMI, though I'm not sure if he'll actually end up taking part on it or not. Janones was Lula's attack dog on social media during the last election and earlier this year, when O Globo reported on which Brazilian politicians had the most engagement in social media, he was the only pro-government one in the top 10 so it makes sense they'd want him here. That said, Janones is part of a small party (Avante) and I'm not entirely sure if they'll get to appoint anyone.

There are other names which are floating around as possible members of the CPMI but it's probably better to just wait for the parties to officially appoint everyone, I'll mention only a few more prolific people. It seems like PDT will appoint Federal Deputy Duda Salabert, which means there'll be transgender representation in the commission. Podemos is probably appointing senator Marcos do Val who is just all around a very weird guy, he seems to believe that the January 8 attacks were an inside job or something like that (and he claims he has classified documents which prove his accusations). Sergio Moro wants to be appointed, the opposition has been working in the background to make sure he gets one of the União Brasil seats in the senate, but the government expects the party to choose members from the more moderate, centrão wing of the party.

When the January 8 CPMI gets officially installed, they'll have to settle on a president for the commission and the president picks a rapporteur. The government reportedly wants Renan Calheiros to get either of these positions and Rodrigo Pacheco, the president of the Senate had supposedly already started working on trying to get this done. That said, it seems like this will not be possible, Calheiros is a political rival of Arthur Lira, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, they're both members of two important political families in Alagoas. Calheiros getting one of these positions could cause a rift between the government and one of the houses of congress, so they'll probably seek to avoid it.

The name of Federal Deputy André Fufuca was pointed as one of the likeliest ones to become president of the CPMI. He's a member of PP, the same party as Lira and they're both pretty close, he was seen as a way to pressure both the opposition and the government. That said, Fufuca decided to give up on the idea of presiding the commission yesterday. Now, the person who has the most chance of getting that job is Federal Deputy Arthur Maia, a member of União Brasil. He isn't part of the bolsonarista wing of the party, but he's also not pro-Lula, which I guess makes him someone who isn't offensive to the government or the opposition.

That said, I should mention that PL is probably going to try to get one of their guys as president of the CPMI. I've heard they want Federal Deputy André Fernandes in that seat. Fernandes is the guy who first started collecting signatures for the creation of the commission, but it is unlikely he'll get the role. The government doesn't even want Fernandes to participate in the CPMI at all, if he gets appointed by PL, they're willing to take it to court, reason being that he is currently being investigated by the Supreme Court due to possibly being involved with anti-democratic acts.

The main contender for the role of rapporteur at the moment is Senator Eduardo Braga, from MDB. He is friendly with the government, in fact, he ran for governor of Amazonas last year and was supported by Lula, his running mate was even from PT.

The January 8 commission is the one getting the most attention now, but it's not the only one being created. This week, Arthur Lira created three commissions which will only take place in the Chamber of Deputies, the most notable of which is the one investigating the Landless Workers' Movement's (known as MST in Portuguese) invasion of private property. There's this story which has been brewing in the background, mostly making rounds in right-wing internet circles about an uptick on MST invasions, the opposition accuses Lula of being too cozy with them and bending a knee to what they see as domestic terrorism.

This commission will be composed by 27 federal deputies. There's a bit of a dispute to see who'll be the rapporteur here since there are two federal deputies who want the job. The first one is Ricardo Salles, from PL, Bolsonaro's former Minister of the Environment, the second one is Kim Kataguiri, from União Brasil, one of the leaders of the Free Brazil Movement, they're both hostile to MST. Salles is seen as the favorite, having the support of Lira, his important position here is supposed to be a kind of consolation prize to PL since they're unlikely to preside the Jan 8 CPMI. Lira has asked Salles to be as moderate as possible in the position, but knowing Salles, I wouldn't really count on it. The government is trying to prevent Salles from getting the job.

Ultimately, I don't expect this commission to really get that much attention, mostly because it's probably getting overshadowed by the January 8 one.

[Pivaru]

Over the last week a bill that's making it's way through the Chamber of Deputies has caught a lot of people's attention, it is called bill 2630. It's supposed to establish regulations on social media, the reason being to combat fake news, due to that, it got nicknamed the fake news bill, though the opposition has been calling it the censorship bill. Last Tuesday, the Chamber voted to fast track it (238 in favor - 192 against) and on Thursday a final draft was presented.

The bill does quite a few things, among them:

• Senators and federal deputies will now have a special status in social media, they won't be allowed to block anyone and their parliamentary immunity will be extended to what they say in social media.
• Journalistic media outlets which are more than 2 years old will have to be paid by social media platforms.
• Social media platforms will be held accountable for content which contains misinformation. They'll be given 24 hours to remove said content and, if they don't comply, they'll have to pay a fine which could range from R$50,000 to R$1,000,000 per hour until they delete the post.
• Social media platforms will have to identify if their users are normal people are bots/fake accounts, they'll have to combat this latter group and will be held accountable if they fail to do so, once again, they can be fined.
• Social media platforms will have to be very strict in identifying who is paying for ads, in particular political ones.

The previous drafts of the bill included other provisions, the most controversial of which was the creation of a government entity which would supervise the social media platforms. It got dropped so the bill could get more support from skeptical politicians in congress.

The government strongly supports the bill and it seems like passing it is one of their main priorities right now. That said, it's possible this could be Lula's first big defeat in the lower house. Aside from framing it as crucial to combat fake news, I see many attempts to frame it as necessary for saving lives. Last month Brazil had problems with attacks in schools and there have been arguments that social media made the situation worse. Ironically enough I have seen some federal deputies from PT spreading misinformation about the bill, talking about how it'd help to "protect you from scammers" (it doesn't, that's not what this bill is about at all). Mainstream media has been pretty supportive of 2630, which makes sense, they'd get more money if it got passed.

I do feel like the opposition's messaging has been better, if for no other reason that they seem to be louder and more active in this particular fight. The right has been framing the bill as censorship, that whole dropped provision about the creation of a supervising agency got framed as "the government trying to create the ministry of truth from 1984". Politicians who have ties to evangelical churches (and even some who don't have such ties) have started posting misinformation about the bill, claiming it'd "ban some parts of the bible on social media". The big social media platforms have criticized the bill, Meta released a statement saying that "it creates a system similar to that of undemocratic regimes" and Google has put a link on their home page which redirects to a statement by the company arguing against bill 2630. The government actually seems a bit annoyed at Google now, Minister of Justice and Public Security Flávio Dino said on his Twitter that he'd get Senacom, one of the government's agencies, to investigate the company due to the possibility of abusive practices in relation to their anti-bill 2630 thing.

As a side note, I do find it amusing that the evangelical types are resorting to fake news, I mean, I think the bill is pretty awful as is and has enough stuff in it that you can criticize without resorting to this. I'm not naive though, it's not hard to see why they're doing this, nothing gets that Brazilian evangelical blood boiling more than implying that the left is secretly a bunch of bible hating satanists.

Last week Telegram was blocked in Brazil due to not sending the data from members of a neonazi group to the police. The app said they couldn't send it because the data was already deleted. I've seen some people from the opposition pointing to this as a way to argue against the bill too, "they came for telegram, they'll ban other platforms too!", you know how it goes. The block only lasted two days by the way, the app's working again now.

The bill may get voted tomorrow and if it passes, it goes to the senate. The evangelical caucus, which has something like 140-150 deputies, is going to vote against it. The leader of Republicanos, a centrão party with 42 deputies (12 of which are in the evangelical caucus), has said the party is planning to vote against it. I've heard there's an effort inside PL to make sure that every single one of their 99 deputies votes against it. Word has it that if Arthur Lira, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, and the government think they don't have enough support in congress, they'll try to postpone the vote.

[Pivaru]

snip

Some follow ups on this situation. Yesterday Twitter had some problems with logging out users on their computers. I've seen some politicians and quite a few journalists claiming that this was made to stifle pro-bill 2630 discourse on the platform which like, no? It wasn't? The outage wasn't only in Brazil. Using fake news to push the fake news bill, ironic.

The government got Google to remove the link to their anti-bill 2630 statement.

https://twitter.com/Metropoles/status/1653426088209534976

Minister Flávio Dino's argument boils down to the following: "well, Google is not a journalistic organization, therefore, what is that text they're linking to? It can't be an editorial, right? Therefore, this is an ad! It's not marked as an ad though! This is abusive publicity, I am very smart!". It's such a weird hill to die on, like, yeah, Google is not a journalistic organization, but like, so what? This is a policy which affects the internet and as Dino himself mentions, Google is a technology company, therefore, it makes sense that this bill would affect them, why can't they link to a statement they posted on their own website about it? Sure, I dislike big tech companies, but this is just stupid.

Anyway, the government said that Google had two hours to remove the link from their homepage and if they didn't, they'd get fined, R$ 1,000,000 per hour, so Google complied. I really don't see how this helps the government, the link was fairly small and I think most people probably just ignored it, now you're drawing attention to the story. Not only that but it makes the opposition's whole song and dance about how this is a censorship bill feel more justified, regardless of whether they're actually right or wrong.

Edit: and now Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has ordered the police to talk with executives from Meta, Google, Spotify and Brasil Paralelo (this last one is a Brazilian company which makes videos pushing revisionist right-wing narratives about history) due to the possibility of "abuse of power" in their anti-bill 2630 activities.

It's not entirely clear if the vote is happening today after all, the opposition seems to want it to be so. The evangelical caucus calculates they have the votes to defeat the bill, they say they have at least 260 against (257 is a majority of the Chamber of Deputies). Since yesterday PSDB-Cidadania has also come out against the bill. Lula and Lira have both met today to discuss how to proceed and I'm not sure what conclusion they came to. I've seen one source claiming the vote is going to take place, but I'll wait for some more to confirm.

Edit: session has started in the Chamber of Deputies. Lira said the bill will only be voted on if he believes it'll pass.

In any case, if they do vote on it, I hope the government loses (though I'd rather not get my hopes up).

[Pivaru]

Lira and the government didn't have enough support to pass bill 2630 today, the project's rapporteur, Congressman Orlando Silva, asked for the vote to be postponed and Lira agreed. There's no new date for the vote for now, but apparently, Silva's wants the Chamber to revisit it in two weeks or so.

[Pivaru]

Early in then morning today, the police raided Bolsonaro's home and seized the former president's phone. The operation is the result of an investigation over Bolsonaro's vaccine records, which he apparently falsified last December, before going to the USA. His daughter's records were also falsified, as well as those of Mauro Cid, one of Bolsonaro's right hand men, Cid's wife and daughter's.

Cid was already the focus of some attention since the beginning of the year due to another scandal involving the former president. During his presidency, he received some jewelry from Saudi Arabia but didn't declare them, secretly storing the jewels in a farm belonging to Nelson Piquet. Cid was responsible for getting the jewelry out of customs in São Paulo and was being investigated due to that.

Aside from Bolsonaro, other 15 people got their houses raided due to this vaccination thing, Cid included. 6 people have been arrested, once again, Cid included. Bolsonaro denies any wrongdoing on his part, saying he falsified nothing and maintaining that he didn't take the vaccine.

The president of PL, Valdemar Costa Neto, has defended Bolsonaro, saying he is confident that it'll be shown in the courts that the former president is innocent. The leader of the opposition in the Chamber of Deputies, Carlos Jordy, called the operation shameful and the leader of PL in the Chamber, Altineu Côrtes, implied the operation is a way for the government to strike back after their defeat yesterday in the bill 2630 vote.

Also, Lula settled on a new name to head the Institutional Security Bureau, Marcos Antônio Amaro dos Santos, a general who had already acted in this position during Dilma's government. This is getting overshadowed by the Bolsonaro story though.

[Pivaru]

CNT poll today

Lula's approval rate
57.4% Approve
34.8% Disapprove

Lula's administration now
46.5% Better than Bolsonaro's
22.0% equal
26.7% Worse than Bolsonaro's

If his approval rating holds, do you think he'll go back on his "no fourth term" pledge?

He already said in February that he may run if the country is in a "delicate situation" and some important people from PT like José Dirceu and Rui Costa have already defended the idea that he can and maybe even should run in 2026. If he's still this popular by then, I find it hard to believe he wouldn't run. I imagine that if Bolsonaro is eligible and runs for president in 2026, that could also make Lula more prone to running again (though this is just speculation on my part and I don't think Bolsonaro will run again).

[Pivaru]

Some of the parliamentary commissions of inquiry (CPI) announced at the end of April have finally started getting officially installed. They were supposed to start at the start of May, but other issues like the PL 2630 vote, the discussion on the new fiscal rule and just the general slowness of the parties to appoint the commission's members ended up slowing the process down.

The commission investigating investigating the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) will be composed by the following federal deputies:

Capitão Alden (PL)
Caroline de Toni (PL)
Delegado Éder Mauro (PL)
Domingos Sávio (PL)
Ricardo Salles (PL)
Padre João (PT)
Nilto Tatto (PT)
Valmir Assunção (PT)
Paulão (PT)
Alfredo Gaspar (União)
Kim Kataguiri (União)
Nicoletti (União)
Ana Paula Leão (PP)
Delegado Fabio Costa (PP)
Evair de Melo (PP)
Hercílio Coelho Diniz (MDB)
Marussa Boldrin (MDB)
Messias Donato (Republicanos)
Tenente-Coronel Zucco (Republicanos)
Charles Fernandes (PSD)
Lucas Redecker (PSDB)
Max Lemos (PDT)
Magda Mofatto (Patriota)
Sâmia Bomfim (PSOL)
PSB and Podemos also have the right for one appointment each, but they haven't submitted who they'd like to appoint.

Coronel Zucco will be the commission's president, Kim Kataguiri the vice-president and Ricardo Salles the rapporteur. Most of the commission is formed by bolsonaristas (Salles himself was a minister during Bolsonaro's government) and people with connections to the agricultural sector (Zucco and Salles both are part of this group too). There was a dispute between Kataguiri and Salles to decide who'd be the rapporteur, but after the president of PL, Valdemar Costa Neto, did some articulations behind the scenes, he guaranteed the spot for Salles.

There's a dispute in the background between Salles and Neto. Salles wants to run for mayor of São Paulo next year, but Neto doesn't seem very fond of the idea. Valdemar's evaluation is that the city is too left wing to elect someone as radical as Salles, they'd be better off supporting the incumbent mayor, Ricardo Nunes or running someone more moderate like Senator Marcos Pontes. Neto's goal is for PL to elect 1600 mayors aligned with them next year (about 30% of all mayors in the country).

In Neto's mind, by supporting Salles now, he'll have more leverage to argue against the federal deputy next year, you know, "I supported you in the CPI, now do me a favor and don't run", something like that. Salles doesn't see it that way, he wants to use this position to get his name out there.

The members of the CPI are already discussing who to summon to be questioned. Some names that have been floated include João Pedro Stédile, one of the leadership figures in MST, José Rainha, another leadership figure, Ricardo Lewandowski, a former supreme court justice who has made some mildly flattering comments about MST and some of Lula's ministers like Flávio Dino, Paulo Teixeira and Carlos Fávaro.

There's one more notable person that could end up being summoned, Guilherme Boulos, a federal deputy from PSOL who's a member of the Homeless Workers' Movement (MTST), an offshoot of MST. Boulos is running for mayor of São Paulo next year and is currently the candidate who has the highest name recognition, naturally, he is leading, he's also very likely to get Lula's support. Questioning him here would obviously be intended to hurt his bid next year.

The commission investigating the January 8 acts will be officially installed next Thursday, on the 25th. The appointed names so far are the following:

In the senate:
Soraya Thronicke (União)
Davi Alcolumbre (União)
Marcos do Val (Podemos)
Cid Gomes (PDT)
Eliziane Gama (PSD)
Omar Aziz (PSD)
Otto Alencar (PSD)
Fabiano Contarato (PT)
Rogério Carvalho (PT)
Ana Paula Lobato (PSB)
Eduardo Girão (Novo)
Magno Malta (PL)
Esperidião Amin (PP)
Damares Alves (Republicanos)
MDB will still appoint their two members.

In the chamber:
Arthur Oliveira Maia (União)
Duarte (PSB)
Carlos Sampaio (PSDB)
Duda Salabert (PDT)
Paulo Magalhães (PSD)
Rafael Brito (MDB)
Aluisio Mendes (Republicanos)
Rodrigo Gambale (Podemos)
André Fernandes (PL)
Delegado Ramagem (PL)
Filipe Barros (PL)
Rubens Pereira Júnior (PT)
Rogério Correia (PT)
Jandira Feghali (PCdoB)
Erika Hilton (PSOL)
There's still one vacant spot here, I think PSC is the party which gets to appoint this last name, but I'm not sure.

The names of the president, vice-president and rapporteur still haven't been announced, but there's already some discussion on who they'll end up summoning. I've seen the names of Bolsonaro's wife, Michele and of General Augusto Heleno, the head of the Institutional Security Bureau between 2019 and 2022 being floated.

Compared to the MST commission, this one is a lot friendlier to the government. I wouldn't go as far as to say it is straight up controlled by Lula's base, there's a lot of Centrão people here, but the government does have close to a majority of the commission, so the bolsonaristas aren't expected to be able to just easily define the narrative.

In other news, a few days ago Deltan Dallagnol, a federal deputy from Podemos (the most voted from Paraná last year) got his mandate revoked by the Superior Electoral Court, it was an unanimous decision by the 7 justices. The court argued that in 2021, when Deltan left his job at the Public Prosecutor's Office (known as PGR in Portuguese), he was being investigated, leaving made it so he evaded punishments by the PGR, which constitutes fraud or something among those lines. Due to the Ficha Limpa law, that makes Dallagnol ineligible for the next 8 years. He was notable for having been the chief prosecutor of Operation Car Wash.

Responses to this have been about what you'd expect, the establishment centrão politicians are pleased, the right says the decision is baseless and the court is persecuting them, the left despises anyone who was involved with Car Wash so they're happy. If nothing else it is ironic that Deltan falls victim to the law which prevented Lula from running in 2018.

This news is bad not only for Dallagnol but also for Sergio Moro. There's a process moved by PL making it's way through the justice system to revoke Moro's mandate and from what I hear, the consensus in Brasilia is that by the end of the year, Moro will be also declared ineligible.

Even if Moro is able to keep his seat in the senate, Deltan's ineligibility is still bad for him. It's pretty obvious he has political ambitions for 2026 and word has it that he has given thought to the idea of running for governor of Paraná that year. He'd certainly be the favorite at first since the popular incumbent, Ratinho Junior, would be term limited and Moro has high name recognition. The plan was for Dallagnol to run for mayor of Curitiba next year, the capital and largest city of the state, having an ally leading such an important city would without a doubt make Moro's job easier if he did decide to run for governor after all.

[Pivaru]

Paraná Pesquisas poll:

Lula's approval rating:
Approve - 54.1%
Disapprove - 39.4%
Don't know/Didn't answer - 6.5%

Has Lula's government been great, good, bad, awful or regular so far?
Good/Great - 39.7%
Bad/Awful - 32.7%
Regular - 24.9%
Don't know/Didn't answer - 2.7%

Has Lula been doing better or worse than you expected?
Better - 29.0%
About what I expected - 38.0%
Worse - 27.6%
Don't know/Didn't answer - 5.4%

Perception of the economy since Lula took office:
The economy got better - 26.8%
The economy got worse - 25.8%
The economy didn't really change - 45.4%
Don't know/Didn't answer - 2.0%


The groups which approve Lula the most are people from the Northeast (67.4%), people who only have a high school diploma (60.4%), those who are not part of the workforce (60.8%), people are are between 16 and 24 (59.8%) and those above 60 (58.5%).

The groups which disapprove Lula the most are those who have higher education (47.4%), men (43.6%), those who are part of the workforce (43.3%) and people between 25 and 34 (43.4%)

[Pivaru]

There was a barbecue at Palácio da Alvorada last week and apparently, during that event, Lula told his cabinet and some supreme court justices that he'll be appointing someone to the supreme court soon, either this week or the next. A seat has been vacant since April, when Ricardo Lewandowski retired. Everything indicates that Lula will appoint Cristiano Zanin, who's known exclusively for being the president's lawyer, pretty unfortunate imo, though it's not surprising, anyone who has been paying attention to Lula since the election should have seen this coming.

According to O Globo, during the barbecue, Lula talked a bit about what he considered to be mistakes in his supreme court picks during his previous terms. The president said he considered all of his picks, except that of Lewandowski (who was at the barbecue and has always ruled in favor of PT and Lula) to have been mistakes. He said his previous choices were too influenced by people like Márcio Thomaz Bastos (the Minister of Justice between 2003 and 2007) and Sigmaringa Seixas (a former federal deputy from PT who, back in the day, was in Lula's shortlist of possible supreme court justices).

Lula's evaluation is that the kind of justices Bastos and Seixas prioritized ended up being the type of people who eventually voted for decisions that hurt PT. Lula also said that respecting the so called triple list for General Prosecutor of the Republic was a mistake. The triple list is something the National Association of Prosecutors of the Republic sends to the president, it contains the names of three people who were voted among members of the association, historically, presidents then choose one of these three names to be General Prosecutor. Bolsonaro broke this tradition by choosing Augusto Aras, PT attacked him quite a bit for that, but it seems like Lula will end up doing the same, once again, not surprising if you've been paying attention.

In short, Lula seems to have one priority when appointing people to the justice system this term, he wants people who'll be loyal to him.

[Pivaru]

The last month has been a bit tough for Lula when it comes to his relation with congress and yesterday, the government just suffered another defeat. The Chamber of Deputies passed bill 490, a proposal spearheaded by the ruralist caucus which makes it so that indigenous tribes can only have their lands demarcated if they can prove they were living there in 1988, when the constitution was adopted. It's a bill obviously meant to benefit farmers and miners, since many tribes are expected to not be able to prove this, since they were expelled from their lands and could only come back and resettle after the cutoff date.

The government tried to articulate yesterday so that the bill wouldn't get voted on, but it didn't work. Arthur Lira, the president of the Chamber, who is in favor of the project, decided to go forward with the vote and it was passed, 283-155. The government now hopes that they'll be able to defeat the bill in the senate.

One common criticism of Lula I've seen over the past months is that he's focused too much on foreign policy, leaving too little time for the president to talk to congressmen. I know one of his allies on the Chamber complained that while the government's deputies are all dealing with the chaotic situation in congress, Lula is more preoccupied with meeting Maduro. I've also heard that centrão people, Lira included, are annoyed at the lack of articulation by Lula. This problem is easily seen by the fact that PSD, MDB and União Brasil, all parties that have ministers in Lula's cabinet, voted against the government yesterday.

Another problem Lula had in congress yesterday was that the Chamber didn't vote on something very important for the government. Back when Lula took office, he signed a decree creating the current 37 ministries and reorganizing some of the ones that already existed before, the decree however needs to be approved by congress and they have 120 days to approve it. The 120 days will run out on 11:59 PM tomorrow, the government expected they'd vote on it yesterday, but the Chamber just chose not to do it. If they let the clock run out (or vote it down), the country will go back to having 23 ministries, the ones that existed under Bolsonaro's administration.

Lula had a meeting with some of his ministers earlier today to discuss this situation and he talked to Lira over the phone, G1 says they'll also meet in person later today. Lira reportedly complained about Alexandre Padilha, the Secretary of Institutional Affairs, who's supposed to be the one dealing with congress on Lula's behalf. They're trying to get some kind of deal done to get the decree passed, afaik, Lira and most of his centrão allies would like to see some a new ministerial reform, scrapping the current ministries and starting over so they can have a say on it too.

The expectation at the moment is that the Chamber will vote on the decree today and if it gets approved, it goes to the Senate and they also vote on it today. The ruralist caucus is planning to vote against it and União Brasil also appears to be planning to vote against the government, PL will vote against the decree as well, of course.

At the end of the day, I expect the government to be able to cook up some kind of deal with congress, I wouldn't even be surprised if União Brasil came to reverse their stance and vote for the decree. Fwiw, just a few hours ago, the government just released BRL $1.7 billion to congressmen, the largest amount released in a single day ever. I remember when Lula criticized Bolsonaro for releasing money for congressmen and called it "worse than Mensalão" during the campaign.

Edit: Lira was asked by journalists about this whole situation and he said blamed this whole thing solely on the government, claiming the congress has no fault here. Lira also claimed he isn't sure if they'll vote on it today, he's still discussing the possibility with the leaderships in the Chamber, he did mention that if it does get voted on, the government is likely to lose. Maybe the situation is more delicate than I thought at first tbh, but we'll see what happens.

Edit: Vote is going to happen today, União Brasil did in fact decide to reverse their stance and will vote with the government, so deal was probably reached. I wonder what the price was.

[Pivaru]

Bad news for Bolsonaro, he could become ineligible as early as this month. Yesterday, the trial of Jair Bolsonaro got scheduled by Superior Electoral Court for June 22 (they have also reserved June 27 and 29 to the discussion of this trial if necessary). This trial in particular is relating to an episode that happened back in July 2022, when he invited a bunch of foreign diplomats to a meeting and proceeded to use that setting to sow distrust on the Brazilian electoral system. The Electoral Public Ministry has already publicly recommended to the court for it to rule against the former president.

I think basically everyone, even Bolsonaro's allies, views his ineligibility as a certainty, it's only a question of when it'll happen. The former president's inner circle is hoping now that Justice Kassio Nunes Marques, the only one appointed by Bolsonaro in the court, will temporarily suspend the trial by asking for more time to analyze the case. That said, even if Nunes does that, the suspension only lasts for 60 days at most (and depending on when the Superior Electoral Court goes into recess, maybe it could end up lasting something like 90 days), after that period, Nunes would have to give his vote and ultimately, that's probably just not enough time for the situation to get better for Bolsonaro. Even if they don't rule against him this time, there's something like 14 or 15 other cases making their way through the court at the moment.

In other news, there was a development in next year's São Paulo mayoral race. After Bolsonaro and the president of PL, Valdemar Costa Neto, met with the incumbent mayor Ricardo Nunes, Bolsonaro's former Minister of the Environment (and currently, a federal deputy), Ricardo Salles, withdrew from the race. Over the past year, Salles worked to be the bolsonarista candidate in the city,  however, he faced a lot of resistance from the more pragmatic, politically savvy wing of his party, including Valdemar, who would rather ally with Nunes or have a more moderate candidate. Up until now, Bolsonaro had more or less sided with Salles, though in a very low-key way. Salles has criticized Bolsonaro over the past two or three days, calling him fragilized, saying his recent actions were shameful and tweeting out that "those who walk with the pigs eat crumbs".

The Nunes camp is pleased with Salles' withdraw as, at least for now, he's the only right wing candidate in the race. I mean, Novo will eventually have their own (probably irrelevant) right wing candidate and there's a chance Senator Marcos Pontes could end up running as PL's candidate, but at the moment, it seems likely that Nunes will be the guy who the right will have to coalesce behind if they want to defeat Guilherme Boulos.

[Pivaru]

Ever since the government and the Chamber of Representatives last had disagreements two weks ago, rumors have been floating that Lula would fire the Minister of Tourism, Daniela Carneiro as a way to get more support in the lower house. Daniela is the wife of Waguinho, the mayor of Belford Roxo, the 6th largest city in Rio de Janeiro. In spite of Bolsonaro's strength in that state (and city), Waguinho supported Lula last election so that Carneiro would get a ministry. They were both part of União Brasil, but he left the party some months ago to join Republicanos and it seems like his wife is going to do the same.

Back in January, Carneiro had already been involved in a bit of scandal when it was revealed that she had connections to some militia groups in Rio. Given that one of the most common routes of attack against Bolsonaro over the past few years was that he had connections to militias, it's not hard to see how appointing her would look hypocritical. That story however got overshadowed by the January 8th attacks, so it was forgotten by most people.

União is not happy with Carneiro, arguing that she doesn't represent the party and leaving her as a minister makes negotiations harder. Most of their members would prefer someone like Celso Sabino, one of União's current federal deputies, in her place. Recently, the party's leadership has been threatening the government over this situation, in private, they have said they'd make 50 of their 59 deputies part of the opposition.

Yesterday, many media publications reported that Lula had decided to fire Carneiro. With this in mind, Waguinho quickly started to argue that he and his wife both made huge sacrifices by supporting Lula and that her substitute would end up just being a bolsonarista. He also tried to get his party to help, but they decided to stay out of the conflict. Today, Lula met with Daniela Carneiro and tried to negotiate with her, offering other offices as consolation prizes, however, she denied the offer. Ultimately, it was decided, somewhat surprisingly, that Carneiro would stay.

Since this news only came out a few hours ago, I don't know how União Brasil will end up reacting. I honestly doubt they'll actually follow up with the threat of becoming an opposition party, but I think the pressure for Carneiro to leave will continue.

[Pivaru]

New Datafolha poll on the approval of Lula's government:

Good/great - 37% (-1)
Regular - 33% (+3)
Bad/awful - 27% (-2)
Don't know/didn't answer - 3% (-)

The variations in the good/great and the bad/awful answers were both inside the margin of error.

[Pivaru]

Lula's pick for the open supreme court seat, hsi lawyer Cristiano Zanin, just participated in a 7h30min hearing with the senate's Commission of the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship. It was a very milquetoast hearing, Zanin tried appealing to the left wing senators by saying he wouldn't excuse himself of judging cases involving Lula and appealed to the right by saying he'd respect freedom of speech and that abortion is an issue that should be solved by the legislature. The only real moment of tension was a confrontation between Zanin and Sergio Moro. His name was approved by the commision, 21 votes in favor and 5 against. Now, there'll be a full senate vote, if he gets more than half of them (that is, 41 or more), he's officially the new supreme court minister, the government is expecting something like 60 voters in favor or so, we should have the results later today.

Ultimately, this quick and clean approval is unsurprising, the senate hearing and vote has always just been one giant rubber stamp when it comes to appointing people for the supreme court.

Edit: Zanin has been approved, 58-18