Presidential candidate Romeu Zema of the Novo party, a former governor of Minas Gerais, hung a giant banner showing Alexandre de Moraes, a justice of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), behind bars on São Paulo's Paulista avenue on Monday (7), the country's Independence Day. The Novo party installed the piece on the side of the Anchieta building for its September 7 rally. In his speech, Zema spoke of a "gang" ("turminha") around Moraes inside the court and pressed Justice Cármen Lúcia to take a stand.
The montage shows the justice in his robe and a prison uniform under the slogan "Chega de Intocáveis", or "No More Untouchables", the name of a web series on Zema's social media accounts, according to news site Poder360. The banner also carries a photo by O Globo journalist Brenno Carvalho of Moraes laughing with fellow justices after the court's September 2 session, an image that spread online at the height of the crisis between the justice and Daniel Vorcaro, the founder of Master bank. Before the rally, Zema recorded a video from the top of the Chypre building, also on the Paulista, with the banner behind him: "In Brasília we have a gang of untouchables who consider themselves above the laws, above the Constitution and, above all, above the rest of us, decent Brazilians who pay taxes."
The "gang" and the pressure on Cármen Lúcia
"Justice Flávio Dino is part of the little gang that wants everything to stay as it is, because powerful people are benefiting. He is part of the gang of Moraes, of Toffoli, of Gilmar Mendes, it is the same gang. And we are seeing what they are capable of doing," Zema said, in a CNN Brasil transcript.
The candidate went further, according to Poder360: "In any minimally civilized country, one with a sense of shame, a justice like this [Alexandre de Moraes], serving a criminal, would have been expelled and very probably locked up." CNN Brasil notes the remarks came days after Justice André Mendonça lifted the seal on a Federal Police report that revealed messages Vorcaro sent to Moraes.
On Cármen Lúcia, who like Zema is from Minas Gerais, the candidate said he hopes her "conscience speaks louder than the corporatist spirit" of the court. "I will send her a message. I thought about it yesterday and the day before, and I will send it. I have her contact, I know she is a good person. Today she is isolated there, she is the only woman on the Supreme, and I will raise this with her," he said. Zema also promised to be "the president who will nominate the most women to the Supreme"; CNN Brasil notes that three seats are expected to open on the court during the next presidential term.
What comes next
The STF, Brazil's top court, has been in institutional crisis since September 1 over the Master case and Federal Police findings on officials tied to a favors scheme run by Vorcaro. Mendonça has sent the case on the messages between Moraes and Vorcaro to the full court, where Chief Justice Edson Fachin sets the next steps. According to Poder360, an eventual full-court vote on an investigation of Moraes is tied, and Cármen Lúcia is the only justice whose vote remains undecided.
Later on Monday, the same avenue hosts a rally called by Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the PL presidential candidate, under the slogans "Out with Lula, out with Moraes" and "It is now or never". Zema said his message to Cármen Lúcia will go out in the coming days.