Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, a presidential candidate for the PL party and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, publicly demanded on Saturday (5) that Justice Carmen Lucia of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) vote to open an investigation into her fellow justice Alexandre de Moraes. Speaking in a social media livestream, he said the country will be watching the decision and warned that siding with Moraes could hurt her biography, according to O Globo.
"Carmen Lucia, Brazil is waiting to see how you will vote next week, whether you will allow Alexandre de Moraes to be formally investigated or whether you will go easy on him after everything that has come to light. It will look very bad for your story, for your biography," Flavio said.
In the same livestream, the candidate asked how a justice who has "always defended democracy, freedom, and has always been against impunity" would now position herself. He defended Justice Andre Mendonca, the target of the investigation request filed by Moraes, saying he "does nothing more than be a fair judge who persecutes no one". About Moraes, he was blunt: "He can no longer stay on the Supreme Court. He makes no secret from anyone that he thinks he runs the country."
Why Carmen Lucia's vote matters
Carmen Lucia is seen as the decisive vote when the full court reviews the conduct of the two men. According to Folha de S.Paulo, she sees mistakes by both Mendonca and Moraes in the moves that pushed the court into an institutional crisis and has not yet decided which of them she will back. Moraes and Mendonca are competing for her vote as their groups fight for dominance on the bench, the newspaper reported. Folha also reported that she called Moraes on Thursday (3), before he announced his counterattack.
The court has two questions before it. First, whether Mendonca's methods were arbitrary in the investigations into Banco Master and the INSS, Brazil's social security institute, which produced a Federal Police report naming Moraes as an interlocutor of former banker Daniel Vorcaro. Second, whether it was proper for Moraes to use the so-called fake news inquiry to request an investigation of Mendonca for abuse of authority, administrative improbity and a crime of responsibility.
Flavio tied the size of the protests to the outcome of the judgment. "If the streets are full all over Brazil on September 7, the judgment will be one thing; if they are empty, it will be another," he said, two days before the Independence Day rallies he called against President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party and against Moraes. Folha reported that his campaign wants a large rally on Paulista avenue in Sao Paulo to break a statistical tie in the polls and take the lead heading into a likely runoff. The newspaper also noted that, during the livestream, he heard people defend the January 8, 2023 riots in Brasilia.
The court's calendar
The decisions, however, may take longer than the candidate suggested. According to Poder360, STF President Justice Edson Fachin set deadlines that push the review of both cases into late September. In the Banco Master case, filings from Mendonca, Moraes, Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet and Federal Police Director General Andrei Rodrigues are due by Friday (11), which moves any decision past September 14. In the fake news inquiry dispute, Gonet has five business days to respond, followed by five more for Mendonca, placing the matter before the full court only after September 22, twelve days before the first round of the election. Carmen Lucia has not said publicly how she will vote.