RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Federal Deputy Alexandre Frota lodged a motion for impeachment against President Jair Bolsonaro in the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday, March 19th.
A former fervent Bolsonarist, Frota listed six impeachable offenses in his denunciation of the President. These are: crime of responsibility for calling a protest; crime against national safety, for instigating and calling a protest against the Constitution; crime against public administration, for excluding the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo from a public event; crime for disregarding the propriety of his position; crime against public administration, for attacking journalists Patrícia Campos and Vera Magalhães; and crime against public health, for the incident in which he socialized with demonstrators outside the Alvorada Palace on March 15th, when his supporters were protesting against Congress and the Judiciary.
In the 38-page denunciation, Frota states that Bolsonaro “was notoriously supported by far-right movements that, after his election, began to blame the government’s failures on the alleged obstacles raised by the other powers, Legislative and Judiciary. These far-right movements have been threatening Brazilian democratic institutions, with an appeal to close the National Congress and the STF”.
According to Frota, the aggressive behavior of far-right movements towards Brazilian democracy has been encouraged by Bolsonaro, “who daily attacks the press, the freedom of which is one of the guarantees of the Democratic Rule of Law”.
The document submitted by the deputy opens with statements by Rui Barbosa and Mahatma Gandhi. “From so often watching the triumph of nullities; from so often watching dishonor thrive; from so often watching injustice grow; from so often watching the powers increase in the hands of the wicked, man becomes discouraged from virtue, laughs at honor and is embarrassed to be honest” ( Rui Barbosa).
“Just as a drop of poison compromises a whole bucket, so lies, however small, spoil our whole life” (Mahatma Gandhi).
From supporter to opponent
Alexandre Frota was one of the fiercest Bolsonarists in the presidential campaign. In 2018, he ran for political office for the first time and received 155,000 votes, becoming the third-most voted federal Deputy in the state of São Paulo.
A first-term legislator, he was part of the government’s shock troops and one of the most active in the process of approving the welfare reform. He was widely praised by the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, for his role in Congress.
Affiliated with the PSDB since August 2019, Frota had been expelled from the PSL, Bolsonaro’s former party, after criticizing the president and his sons. According to him, his first disappointment with Bolsonaro occurred during the formation of the government, when the names he suggested, particularly for the cultural sphere, were scorned by the administration.
However, he denies that the rupture is related to positions. “The quarrel was not over positions, because I did not ask for any position. It was Bolsonaro who asked me to set up this bureau (in the area of culture) for him,” he said.
He also mentioned the case involving Fabricio Queiroz, a former driver in Senator Flávio Bolsonaro’s cabinet, as one of the reasons for the dispute. “The Queiroz case led us to take a defensive stand. I went up (on the stand) and said, ‘I advocate the arrest of Queiroz’. Then the phone rang, it was an aide to Jair saying he didn’t like it,” he said.