Former Goias governor Ronaldo Caiado, a presidential candidate for the PSD party, defended a "broad, general and unrestricted" amnesty for those convicted over the January 8, 2023 attack on Brazil's seat of government, during a live interview on Globo TV on Tuesday. The sit-down, hosted by anchors Renata Vasconcellos and Cesar Tralli as part of a special election program, aired right after the flagship evening newscast Jornal Nacional from Globo's studios in Rio de Janeiro. Caiado was the second of six leading candidates to face the format, which began the day before with Romeu Zema of the Novo party and runs through August 29, with sessions for Renan Santos (Missao), President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT), Senator Flavio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) and writer Augusto Cury (Avante).
According to newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, Caiado said he intends to send Congress a broad amnesty bill that would cover former president Jair Bolsonaro, framing it as a way to "pacify the country." He compared the proposal to the Supreme Federal Court's (STF) decision to annul Lula's corruption convictions from the Car Wash (Lava Jato) probe, saying he would act "the same way the Supreme Court granted relief to President Lula." The comparison is not quite accurate: Lula was not granted amnesty by the court. In 2021 the STF threw out those convictions after finding procedural flaws, including bias by the presiding judge at the time, Sergio Moro, not because it forgave the underlying crimes on political grounds.
Caiado said he has never contested an election result and described himself as a democrat. To justify amnesty for those convicted over the January 8 riots, when supporters of Bolsonaro stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace after his 2022 election loss, Caiado pointed to what he called a Brazilian tradition of political pardons, citing a measure signed by then president Juscelino Kubitschek in the 1950s. "The Brazilian character is not built on hatred," he said, per Folha.
Fiscal plan light on detail
Pressed on economic policy, Caiado did not directly answer whether he would raise the minimum retirement age or how he would balance the federal budget. "I'm not in a position to spell out the details," he said. He set a goal of capping public spending at no more than 50% of gross domestic product (GDP), adjusted for inflation, and said he would send a constitutional amendment to Congress with that proposal on his first day in office if elected.
On public safety, Caiado again pitched a joint police force with Brazil's neighbors, which he calls SulPol, modeled on Europol, the European Union's police cooperation agency. According to G1, which also covered the interview live, Caiado was asked about military involvement in the coup attempt and about the so-called "Green and Yellow Dagger" plot, a plan by coup supporters to assassinate Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and STF Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
Per the BBC News Brasil polling aggregator, which compiles surveys from pollsters including Datafolha, Quaest, AtlasIntel and MDA, Caiado ranked third in the presidential race as of Tuesday, with 5% of first round voting intentions, trailing Lula at 40% and Flavio Bolsonaro at 34%. The six candidates featured in Globo's interview series were chosen because they topped a Quaest poll released on August 14.