Tag: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

In the jungle, the jaguar reigns supreme. On Oct. 28, Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil. Until the end of August, Bolsonaro trailed a man campaigning from a prison cell — former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In September, Bolsonaro was stabbed in the stomach by a man who claimed to be on “a mission from God” to bring Bolsonaro’s candidacy to an end. Far-right proclivities aside, Brazilians should worry about Bolsonaro’s dictatorial tendencies. As the campaign reached its closing chapters, Bolsonaro, in “Trumpian” fashion, suggested his political rivals would end up in jail or in exile. It would be a shame if they ended up in his jaws. Bolsonaro has suggested packing the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court with 10 new judges who would serve his political whims. Brazil’s democracy may be relatively young, but its political culture has become as rough-and-tumble as any. If those institutions are the casualties of Bolsonaro’s rule, Brazil will be worse off.

On the campaign trail, Bolsonaro has frequently drawn comparisons to U.S. President Donald Trump. Much of Brazil views the PT as corrupt. More worrying, perhaps, is that Brazil’s powerful military is backing Bolsonaro too. For military leaders, it appears to be a question of law and order. For decades, the armed forces largely avoided direct interference in or commentary about civilian politics. But support for democracy plummeted in Brazil to merely 13 percent last year. In an article I wrote this year for the Journal of Conflict Resolution, I showed that, between 1900 and 2015, former authoritarian elites in Latin America were four times more likely to return to positions of political or economic power under democracy than to be punished for their misdeeds. Brazil’s experience is more similar to Chile’s than to Argentina’s. After more than two decades in power, Brazil’s last military regime under João Figueiredo stepped down in 1985. For all of its power and influence, the military would far rather pull the strings of a Bolsonaro presidency than step in to rule directly.

But the story isn’t over. The Supreme Court will rule on whether he goes to prison while the Superior Electoral Court will rule on whether he can run for office. Will Lula be able to seek the presidency again? If Lula registers to run for office by the August 15 deadline, the Superior Electoral Court will review his case. It’s likely to rule his candidacy ineligible under the so-called "clean slate" law, meaning the Workers’ Party would have to find another candidate by Sept. 17. Is Lula going to jail? Could he really run for president from prison? While the Constitution prohibits inmates from running, prisoners who have not exhausted their appeals process can in theory run for office. To date no Brazilian president has successfully run for office from inside a prison cell. Aside from the possibility of Lula running for office from a jail cell, there’s also a chance that Lula could run for election, win, and then have his candidacy invalidated.