Opinion: fear of Brazil’s Supreme Court, election hangover demobilize population and reduce protests

By Leonardo Desideri

(Opinion) The Supreme Court’s (STF) escalation of authoritarianism, initiated with the fake news inquiry, boosted during the 2022 election race and exacerbated after the January 8 acts, is demobilizing the people and reducing the number of street demonstrations.

Even in the face of the dissatisfaction of a large part of the population with the new Executive and the controversy generated in public opinion by Bill 2.630/2020, the Fake News Bill or Censorship Bill, there are still few signs of popular reaction outside the digital realm.

The fear of being arrested for expressing opinions – typical of dictatorial regimes – is one of the reasons why many Brazilians have avoided protesting in the streets.

It’s still uncertain, moreover, that the STF won’t be able to rescue a January decision that banned protests in the country to justify repressing any demonstrations that may take place in the future.

For the lawyer and professor Cândido Alexandrino, Master in Constitutional Law at the University of Fortaleza (Unifor), the fear of exercising the right to demonstrate is a sign of corrosion of democracy.

“It is not credible that democracy in Brazil prohibits demonstrations. People on the streets,” as Ulysses Guimarães said, “is the example to be followed.”

“People want to demonstrate, and they can’t. They are afraid.”

“By distorting the law in decisions and judgments, they managed to forbid demonstrations and put fear in everyone. Who wants to take risks?”

“They [some members of the judiciary] seem to have won the supreme right to search people, investigate them and punish them without any legal basis.”

“We live in a state of exception that seems to be constitutional, but the actions of some ministers of the STF affront the Brazilian Constitution.”

For Lucas Berlanza, president of the Liberal Institute, this fear is compounded by the disillusionment of a large part of the people with the inauguration of an Executive aligned with the Supreme Court’s ideas on the control of expression.

“The succession of frustrations has provoked a discouragement and a demobilization.”

“After all that has happened, with society watching Lula’s election, the increase in the power of the STF, there is a feeling of impotence,” he says.

Federal congressman Marcel van Hattem (Novo-RS) was one of those responsible for calling one of the only significant street demonstrations against the PL 2.630 – in Porto Alegre, with about 5,000 participants, on the 1st – and has highlighted on his social networks the importance of the return of popular pressure.

He agrees that the fear of the STF has made the protests diminish.

“It has reduced because people are afraid – which was one of the goals of Alexandre de Moraes and the government itself in making these completely unfair arrests of people who, as much as they were, in my opinion, protesting in the wrong place, in front of the barracks, have their right to demonstrate guaranteed by the Constitution,” he says.

For Van Hattem, we “no longer live in a full democracy.”

“We are living in a state of exception. When you cannot manifest your opinion because the powerful consider that your opinion is anti-democratic, when he makes this assessment, you no longer live in a democracy.”

“In a democracy, the people control the power and not the power controls the people.”

Berlanza points to the fragmentation of the right in recent years as another reason why it is harder to unite for protests, even when the agenda is consensual, as in the case of opposition to the Fake News Bill.

“Nobody wants to walk together.”

“A liberal says: ‘Oh, if I go to a demonstration, the Bolsonarists will be there, and I’m fighting with them daily. I will be on the side of the Whatsapp aunt who says that Bolsonaro is a God and that I’m a communist. I don’t want to be on that person’s side.'”

“Or, on the other side: ‘Oh, I’m not going to get together with these MBL [Free Brazil Movement] people; they are communists or something like that. We can’t be in the street together.'”

“The internal tensions within the right wing have demobilized the possibility of articulation of the right wing during these last years. Along with this, there has been an accumulation of frustrations,” he observes.

For him, “These fights cannot be stronger than the [need to protest against the] destruction of Brazilian representative democracy.”

“This has to be a unifying factor to face this problem.”

“We don’t need everyone to join hands, but, to face a problem the size of the one we are facing, I think everyone had to forget these things and go to the street,” he says.

SIGNS THAT PROTESTS WILL RETURN

In Van Hattem’s opinion, given the gravity of the situation of freedom of expression in Brazil, the lack of mobilization will not last long. For him, the revolt against authoritarianism is getting bigger than the fear of reprisal.

“People are already, as we saw in Porto Alegre, changing their minds about the fear of taking to the streets.”

“As much as there is fear, the courage has been greater to face it. And I see that soon we will have millions of people in the streets again.”

“The situation the way it is today is untenable,” says the congressman.

Disrespectful statements by members of the Executive and the Judiciary about the Legislative – such as the recent speech by the Minister of Justice and Public Safety, Flávio Dino, that a regulation of the networks would happen with or without Congress – are, for Van Hattem, an affront to the will of the people, which is represented in Parliament.

“In other times, the minister would be committing a ‘sincericide’ because what he said should lead either to his resignation or, if he had dignity, to his resignation.”

‘However, we live in a moment in which this practice is already so commonplace in the Brazilian institutional framework that such a speech by the minister serves to frighten the National Congress.”

“And nothing happens to him. On the contrary, he expects to emerge strengthened from such an arm wrestling match.”

“And that is why I understand that the people need to manifest themselves even more strongly, as they have already done in the networks with the Censorship Bill.”

“It was thanks to the popular mobilization; it was removed from the agenda. And the people need to continue this movement online and in the streets,” comments the congressman.

Berlanza also believes that popular pressure is essential to reverse the trend toward authoritarianism.

“The STF is out of control, and we don’t see a reaction from the Republican powers that should be in charge of this task, especially the Legislative branch.”

“But I think the game can be turned around, especially if we have the courage and conditions to articulate demonstrations of the necessary dimension to pressure the Legislative Branch.”

“Today, there are none.”

“This great absentee, the street demonstrations, must be back on the agenda.”

“If the destruction of the division of powers, the trampling of the representative system, of the Legislative and the freedom of expression, if this doesn’t justify the need for street demonstrations, I don’t know what does”, he says.

According to him, the gravity of the situation, especially after all the controversy with the Fake News Bill, has motivated more political forces to consider the possibility of street demonstrations openly.

Given the gravity of what is happening, sooner or later – preferably sooner – this resource will need to be used,” he says.

JURIST RECOMMENDS A PRECAUTIONARY MEASURE AGAINST POTENTIAL REACTION FROM THE STF

Cândido Alexandrino recommends that organizers of possible protests take a precautionary measure to reduce the chance of reprisal: ask for authorization from the courts before scheduling the event.

“My suggestion, for precaution and self-preservation, given the insecurity promoted by the STF, is to request a preventive habeas corpus. It would be comical if it were not tragic.”

“As there is a full-time online follow-up within the ‘End of the World Inquiry’ – which never ends, everything is scrutinized, and everyone can be investigated – it is undoubtedly pertinent to seek a protective measure, especially when the protest, until then a free manifestation of thought, is political in nature,” he says.

Alexandrino emphasizes, however, that under normal circumstances – in a real democracy – this would not be necessary since Article 5, section XVI, of the Constitution, states that “everyone may gather (…) in places open to the public, regardless of authorization, (…) being only required prior notice to the competent authority.”

“The Constitution is clear: you do not depend on anyone’s authorization to gather; you only need to communicate to the authority”, affirms the jurist.

News Brazil, English news Brazil, Brazilian politics