Brazil: opposition puts pressure on Lula with 7 impeachment petitions and actions at the Prosecutor General’s Office

By Rodolfo Costa

The opposition is trying to wage a legal war against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

Since the beginning of the government, seven impeachment requests have been made official, 120 actions at the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGR), and almost 20 requests for information in Congress.

But the flood of actions and requests for impeachment for the crime of responsibility will not necessarily lead to a process that results in the President’s removal.

This is because impeachment is, above all, a political process, which sometimes depends little on the legal arguments raised.

For now, there are no political conditions for it to happen with about 100 days of government, evaluates the political scientist and sociologist André César, analyst at Hold Assessoria Legislativa.

The continuous impeachment requests would pressure the PT management into a kind of political guerilla warfare destined to wear down the government gradually.

Other than that, the authors of the measures, sometimes parliamentarians of little political relevance, benefit from the media spotlight when they file them.

The most concrete defeats imposed by the opposition on the federal government so far have been the approval of invitations to ministers to appear before the House of Representatives.

But the government’s situation could worsen if the Mixed Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPMI) to investigate the acts of vandalism on January 8 is installed in Congress. The idea of the opponents is to try to prove that the government was negligent in the episode.

The installation, however, depends on reading the request for the opening of the CPMI by the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), in a joint session of Congress.

The first of the year should occur on April 18, after the trip to China, of which he will be a member, along with Lula, ministers, other parliamentarians, and business people.

LULA’S STATEMENTS MOTIVATED MOST OF THE IMPEACHMENT REQUESTS

Of the 120 complaints against Lula, the Prosecutor General’s Office has filed 70, and 50 are under examination by the Prosecutor’s Office, reports the Metrópoles website.

Others were shelved by order of Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Court (STF), without an opinion from the PGR, such as those that called for the investigation of Lula for questioning the operation that uncovered a kidnapping plan of Senator Sergio Moro (União Brasil-PR) by the criminal faction PCC (First Capital Command).

As for the impeachment requests, more than half were motivated by public statements made by the PT leader:

The last two were presented recently after Lula had that, while in prison, he was thinking of taking revenge on Moro, and also because he put in doubt the credibility of the Federal Police’s (PF) work in the investigations into the plot against the former judge and his family.

One was proposed by Congressman Bibo Nunes (PL-RS), and the other bears the signatures of 33 federal parliamentarians.

Two other requests were filed by Congressmen Sanderson (PL-RS), President of the House Committee on Security and Combating Organized Crime, and Evair Vieira de Melo (PP-ES), and cite Lula’s controversial statement in Argentina.

On his first international trip as President, the PT member said again that the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff (PT) was a “coup d’état,” disregarding the legal process that occurred in 2016.

The requests of Sanderson and Melo were filed based on the internal regulations of the House because they were presented at the end of January 2023, before the beginning of the current legislature, which began on February 1.

The other three requests addressed:

• An alleged bidding process for the purchase of luxury furniture;
• Lula’s accountability for the acts of vandalism on January 8;
• Lula’s attempt to prevent the installation of the Mixed Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPMI) from investigating the attacks and the government’s alleged omission.

Besides Lula, the Minister of Justice and Public Safety, Flávio Dino (PSB), is one of the opponents’ targets in the CPMI of January 8.

He is accused of being informed in advance about security risks on the date, according to a complaint filed by Congressman Kim Kataguiri (União Brasil-SP).

CONSTITUTIONALIST EVALUATES THE VALIDITY OF RECENT IMPEACHMENT PETITIONS

Vera Chemin, constitutional lawyer and Master in Public Administration from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) and constitutional law researcher, believes the most recent impeachment request against Lula is justified because of what the Constitution and Law 1.079/50 say about crimes of responsibility.

For the specialist, Lula can be framed for two crimes of responsibility:

• against the free exercise of constitutional powers “by having used violence or threats against any representative of the nation,” in the case of Senator Sergio Moro,
• and against probity in administration, “by proceeding in a manner incompatible with dignity, honor, and decorum of office” for an offense uttered against the congressman in an interview.

The two possibilities for a crime of responsibility are provided for in clauses 2 and 5 of Article 85 of the Constitution and clauses 6 and 7 of Article 9 of Law 1079.

“The statements made in public by the current president leave no doubt about the real possibility of being framed as a crime of responsibility,” Vera points out.

“Unquestionably, the statements refer to a threat to a member of the Legislative Branch, in addition to spreading fake news, by observing that the concrete danger represented by organized crime in the face of Moro would be a frame by the senator,” she adds.

The constitutionalist believes Lula’s speeches publicly incite hatred against Moro and denote a “blatant intention” of “generalized revenge” against the senator.

She also reinforces her understanding of other warning excerpts of the impeachment request, such as the attempt to remove the President of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, and what she considers an attempt to distort the State Law to promote political appointments that could not ascend to public positions due to legal impediments.

“The deputies also warn about the government’s incapacity; impartially, I say that there is an incapacity to foresee, plan, organize, and execute a short, medium, and long-term project for the country,” she comments.

Vera points out that her analysis is strictly legal and not based on the political scene.

The specialist also highlights her understanding that the government commits a crime of responsibility against the budget law, also provided for in the Constitution and Law 1079.

She attributes this to the new fiscal framework and the overspending promoted and signaled by the government.

“They are extrapolating all limits,” she criticizes.

A POLITICAL ANALYST DOES NOT SEE A POLITICAL SCENARIO FOR THE OPENING OF IMPEACHMENT

Despite the legal conditions cited, political scientist and sociologist André César, an analyst at Hold Assessoria Legislativa, evaluates that the political conditions do not exist to advance a request for Lula’s impeachment in the House.

Although the PT president has not yet assembled his base in the Chamber, it is unlikely that impeachment will move forward after about 100 days in office.

At the beginning of their terms in office, it is common for presidents of the Republic to have minimally satisfactory approval ratings in society.

Although Lula has registered the worst disapproval rate of his three terms in office, his government is approved by 38% of the population in the first quarter of this year, according to Datafolha.

In the same period of former president Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) administration, the index was 32%, and the leftist opposition to him had filed two impeachment petitions.

In political practice, therefore, the possibility that House Speaker Arthur Lira (PP-AL) will welcome the opening of impeachment against the President is unlikely.

“Today, we don’t have instruments or material to make it viable, but it has the space to make noise,” André César highlights.

The political analyst warns, however, that Lula’s lack of a base and the government’s disorganization in the first 100 days fuel the opposition even more.

“These impeachment requests are to pressure, that’s how it works, and this is accentuated in a government that doesn’t have a majority and deals with an opposition that is not small,” he says.

The political scientist evaluates that the new fiscal framework can be the “lifeline” for a weakened government.

“It is not yet a ‘misgovernment’, but the path is not good and, in this game of pressuring Lula, two months from now, these numbers of impeachment and actions may go up to 10, 15, 20 or 30 in the next two months if the scenario does not improve,” he highlights.

THE OPPOSITION ALSO ADVANCES WITH PETITIONS AGAINST LULA IN CONGRESS

In addition to all the instruments of pressure against Lula, the opposition in the House and Senate also filed 18 petitions of repudiation about Lula’s speeches about Moro and for information about travel expenses and an alleged release of funds from non-imposed parliamentary amendments – that is, of non-binding execution in the budget – that succeeded the secret budget.

Three requests filed in the Committee of Public Security and Combating Organized Crime asked for a motion of repudiation for lack of decorum to Lula’s speech regarding the operation that uncovered a kidnapping plan of Senator Sergio Moro.

One was approved and generated the first repudiation note approved in the commission.

Another request asks the Chief Minister of the Civil House, Rui Costa, for clarification on reports in the press that point to an alleged request for R$ 331 million from discretionary state bench amendments (RP2), which replaced the secret budget.

The request was distributed to the rapporteur of the 1st vice-president of the House, Marcos Pereira (Republicans-SP), who gave a favorable opinion and was approved by Arthur Lira on Friday (31).

With this, the holder of the Civil House must respond to the request for information within 30 days, under penalty of being found guilty of a crime of responsibility.

Providing false information also subjects the minister to this crime.

The Chief of Staff of any government is someone of the highest confidence of the President of the Republic, and requests directed to him are an indirect way for the opposition to “frame” the head of the federal executive.

By this same logic, the House of Representatives approved a request that invited Rui Costa to the House Financial Oversight and Control Committee to clarify Lula’s threat to Moro when the President spoke of “fucking” the senator.

There are also requests for information in the Senate and the House for the Minister of Foreign Relations, Mauro Vieira, to clarify the following:

• Expenses of Lula’s trip to China;
• clarification from Rui Costa about Lula’s expenses with a presidential suite in January, when he was already President and could use one of the official residences;
• information from the Minister of Social Communication, Paulo Pimenta, regarding the meeting between Lula and the first lady, Rosângela da Silva, with digital influencers and celebrities on February 8.

There are also requests demanding Itamaraty provide information on foreign donations as gifts to Lula and Rousseff during their terms in office.

One of these requests was forwarded on April 3 by the 1st Secretariat of the Chamber to Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, who will have until May 3 to respond.

The requests against Lula were authored by opposition leader MPs Carlos Jordy (PL-RJ), Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG), José Medeiros (PL-MT), Kim Kataguiri (União Brasil-SP), Marcel van Hattem (Novo-RS), Felipe Francischini (União Brasil-PR), Diego Garcia (Republicans-PR), Gilvan da Federal (PL-ES), Lieutenant Colonel Zucco (Republicans-RS), Silvia Waiãpi (PL-AP), Evair Vieira de Melo and Senator Cleitinho (Republicans-MG).

With information from Gazeta do Povo