RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The vote of evangelical Justice André Mendonça of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), which was also in favor of the conviction of Congressman Daniel Silveira (PTB-RJ), disappointed President Jair Bolsonaro and angered evangelicals and allies of the Presidential Palace.
According to interlocutors of the Presidency, the expectation was that the second minister nominated by Bolsonaro to the Court would ask for access to the case, which would interrupt the trial.
With the vote of Mendonça on April 20, the Court, by ten votes, sentenced Silveira to eight years and nine months in prison for threats against members of the Supreme Court and ordered the loss of parliamentary mandate.
Another Bolsonaro nominee to the STF, Kassio Nunes Marques, was the only one to vote for the congressman’s acquittal.
Bolsonaro, who has publicly defended Silveira, has not yet spoken after Mendonça’s vote, not even privately. Before, he told his allies that he would follow the trial from the Alvorada Palace, where he went after arriving from a trip to the city of Rio Verde in Goiás State. The president, according to reports, was showing apprehension about how the “terribly evangelical” minister would position himself.
Bolsonaro intends to use the opening of the next two vacancies in the STF in the electoral contest, arguing that he, if he remains president, will be able to make a more balanced Court putting a halt to rampant leftist bias. With the dissenting vote of Mendonça, considered a “betrayal”, the holder of the Planalto has his strategy put in check.
For people close to the Bolsonaro family, Mendonça used the case of Daniel Silveira to position himself within the STF and seek the respect of his peers in the Court.
Mendonça voted to sentence Silveira to two years in an open regime and a fine of R$91,000 (US$19,700) for the crime of coercion under Article 344 of the Criminal Code, diverging in part from the rapporteur, Alexandre de Moraes, on the application of the crime under the National Security Law. On the penalty, Mendonça was defeated, as the majority voted with Moraes.
Pastor Silas Malafaia, leader of the powerful Church Assembly of God Victory in Christ (“Assembléia de Deus Vitória em Cristo), reacted to Mendonça and said that the “evangelical world” is disappointed.
Malafaia was one of the leaders who defended the nomination of the former Attorney General of the Union and Presbyterian pastor to the Court. Mendonça’s appointment in the Senate was only scheduled four months after Bolsonaro nominated him since the president of the Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ), Senator Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), resisted going ahead with it. Pressure from evangelicals helped to unblock it.
“In my opinion, he (Mendonça) only had two ways out: ask for the bill to be examined or vote against it. He had no other way out. There is generalized indignation in the evangelical world. Total disappointment” reacted Malafaia.
On the social networks, the president’s allies also spoke out against Mendonça. Congressman Marco Feliciano (PL-SP), also a pastor, reacted: “Terribly disappointed.”
“Who would have thought that Kássio Nunes would get it right and André Mendonça would get it so wrong,” wrote Congresswoman Carla Zambelli (PL-SP).
In private conversations in days leading up to the trial, deputy Daniel Silveira said he did not expect to get rid of the conviction. However, he showed confidence in the votes of Kassio Nunes and André Mendonça, nominated by Bolsonaro. The congressman, however, denied that he had been seeking the magistrates to vote in his favor.