Bolsonaro casts doubt on the electoral court as Lula tries to overcome business class reluctance against his candidacy
A few days before Brazil’s presidential elections, which will take place next Sunday, there is mistrust about the candidates’ political programs. Jair Bolsonaro, the current president, is at war with Alexandre de Moraes, head of the Federal Superior Court (STF), who also presides over the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), which in late March ordered the imprisonment of several businessmen close to Bolsonaro when they discovered that they were defending a coup in his WhatsApp group in the event that Lula da Silva wins the election.
“I prefer a coup to the return of the Workers’ Party,” Josué Gomez, president of Fiesp, a federation of industries in the state of Sao Paulo, had written in one of those messages. In this group of tough men from the Brazilian financial community, they sent each other memes and complained about inflation, while also sharing anti-democratic views. It wasn’t long before De Moraes sent the federal ones to the homes of the eight involved. It froze their bank accounts and ordered social networks to suspend some of their accounts. Bolsonaro believed that the STF president had exceeded his limits with this move and other investigations into him and some of his allies.
De Moraes, for his part, yesterday opened the doors of the room where the investigation will be conducted by the control bodies of the party representatives and the observation missions to show that it was not a “dark room”, as Bolsonaro called it. “It is always important to act transparently and loyally to all those taking part in the electoral process to show that this is an open room, a bright room. It is neither secret nor obscure,” said Moraes after the visit, which was not attended by the two top candidates for the presidency, but was attended by Defense Minister General Paulo Sergio Nogueira, accompanied by a technical team from military and the President of Jair Bolsonaro’s party, Valdemar Costa Neto.
“Everything is thanks to the fact that we have a president who is a threat to public institutions,” said Débora Thome, political scientist and researcher at LabGen-UFF (Federal University of Fluminense). “A president who is anti-democratic, who puts everything under suspicion, institutions, polls, and simply because he is far right,” Thome added in a telephone conversation with this newspaper.
On the other hand, Lula, the big favorite in the polls to once again preside over one of the largest countries in the world, attended a dinner with a large number of businessmen and the first thing the organizer of the meeting asked for was that the guests let their phone in a bag. Many did not accept it. At his dinner meeting with heavyweights of the country’s economy, Lula was direct, according to several media outlets published today, despite efforts to bring the leaks under control. “I need you to end the misery in Brazil” was the first arrow the former Brazilian president launched on business between 2003 and 2010. “Poverty is not just my problem,” he added, then invited them to enter into a dialogue without hypocrisy and ask them to clarify their proposals to get Brazil out of the hole. There are many who criticize Lula for not having a clear economic project, which he has so far been indecisive, and the candidate is aware that he will face strong resistance from the financial world.
“I don’t want the government to go into debt for current spending, but only for investments,” said Lula, who on several occasions demanded responsibility from businessmen in controlling spending. Considered the candidate of the poor, Lula maintains his ideas of seeing a middle class Brazil, where the poor come in at that level. “I want airports full of people traveling,” he added, almost indirectly assuring that he will respect the independence of the Central Bank and propose tax reform.
After this meeting, which some critics say was more productive than Bolsonaro’s in recent days, it is suspected that some of Bolsonaro’s allies will eventually support Lula’s candidacy. The candidate was eventually applauded and took selfies with some of the attendees.
Source: La Verdad
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