The ghosts of Bolsonaro | Lula and CFK unveil …

From Brasilia

Jair Bolsonaro revealed two concerns during the nearly 24 hours remaining in Buenos Aires: the integrated formula by Cristina Fernández will win the October elections, turning Argentina into another Venezuela and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva regaining his freedom.

His arrest in front of Cristina (whom he spoke to American businessmen in Texas) is due to a series of reasons such as the risk of being isolated in a South America governed by several progressive leaders (this year elections will be held also takes place in Bolivia and Uruguay). ). This also responds to his brutal style, devoid of diplomatic coolness, as evidenced by the proselytizing party in a foreign country during an official visit.

The ways of a nostalgic "under-imperialism" implemented by the Brazilian dictatorship responsible for the destabilization of the leaders of the region whose most notorious and documented example is that of Salvador Allende. The Condor Plan and the doctrine of national security were subsidiary to this interventionist diplomacy that seems to be evoked by Bolsonaro.

Another context: the president and his minister of the economy, Paulo Guedes, an extreme liberal, are apologists of the Chilean military regime that emerged after the coup d'état that toppled Allende in 1973.

However, Lula's legal situation is the most urgent issue for the former captain, whose popularity evaporated with unexpected vertigo until falling to 28% at the end of May, compared with 49 when he took office in January. nearly 60% at the end of last year.

Although he was locked up and censored for months, a situation recently corrected after being allowed to give interviews, Lula has not lost his dimension as the main leader of the opposition. His political validity surprises.

"Lula Libre" was one of the slogans launched by thousands of protesters at the May 15 demonstration for the defense of education, to which nearly 2 million people participated in more than 150 cities . The mobilization made Plbadto tremble by its magnitude. Also, because he has reestablished on the popular ground the hegemony of the lost street of the right ascension that led to the fall of Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and contributed to the neo-fascist rise to the presidency in October 2018.

The fact that the leader of the Workers Party becomes a formidable antagonist in the event of the departure of the federal police superintendence in Curitiba is at least a plausible hypothesis. It should be remembered that nine months ago, when he was prevented from standing in elections, he had an intention to vote close to 40% compared to the then candidate, Bolsonaro .

"I hope Lula will stay there long," said the sincere Brazilian leader when he was approached by tourists from Curitiba in the lobby of the Buenos Aires Alvear hotel last Thursday. Two days prior to this declaration, the Attorney General of the Republic had recommended to the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) to make Chief Petista benefit from the semi-open regime.

This was his second judicial victory in 50 days: in May, the same JUS, in third instance, reduced the sentence of 12 years and a month to another of 8 years and 10 months.

With the statement in favor of the closure of the former mechanical turner, the head of state sent a message to a judiciary permeating political pressures as well as an institutionalized military tutelage since the president of the the Supreme Court (Federal Supreme Court), Antonio Dias Toffoli, appointed a general to his advisory team. Dias Toffoli himself recently went to the presidential residence, where a "pact" was made with Bolsonaro, considered by jurists as a way of giving up a minimum of independence from the law. 39; executive.

In this context of weak institutional quality, the exit recommendation made by the Lula Attorney General will have to overcome a series of political pitfalls, hidden by procedural formalities, before being put into practice.

This is a dispute whose outcome is uncertain because, despite Bolsonaro's truculent style in the justice system, divergent voices, even voiced by members of the Supreme Court, are beginning to emerge. emerge.

The fate of the political prisoner will also be played, and perhaps fundamentally, in the streets that will have their next barometer on June 14 with the general strike organized in a unitary and virtually unprecedented way, by all the trade unions squeezed by the can.

Unemployment of more than 13% and job insecurity of 28% of the economically active population add to the rise of discontent.

An indigestible menu for the retired soldier who may well be fleeing to an institutional break in the manner of "autogolpe" given in 1992 by the Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori.