On Wednesday, November 13, at 7:30 p.m., while 20,000 security agents were protecting Rio de Janeiro for the leadership of the G20 presidents, a man set himself on fire in front of the doors of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) in Brasilia. Francisco Wanderley Luiz, 59, member of Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (PL), became the first “man-bomb” of the Brazilian far right.
Characterized as the Joker, protagonist of the film Hollywood by Todd Philips, Wanderley died when the bomb he was carrying in his own body exploded. Minutes before, he had tried to invade the headquarters of the Supreme Court, blew up his car parked at the Congress of Deputies and threw a rag soaked in gasoline at the statue called Justice, which he planned to set on fire with a fire extinguisher full. of fuel.
An hour after the death of “Joker Wanderley”, a man tried to enter Granja do Torto, one of the official residences of the President of Brazil. A member of the Institutional Security Cabinet (ISC) had to fire a shot to deter the invasion.
The euphoria sparked by Donald Trump’s victory in the US elections Bolsonarism It disappeared in just two hours. The incidents in Brasilia on the 13th caused a political turning point. And they accelerated the diffusion of suddenly inquirethe investigation that the Federal Police (PF) has been carrying out for two years into the attempted coup d’état which led to the anti-democratic day of January 8, 2023 in Brasilia.
After Trump’s victory, Jair Bolsonaro had full confidence in the approval of Congressional Bill 2,858, a set of amnesty laws that, among other things, would reverse the political disqualification that prevents him from being a candidate. “What happens in the United States ends up happening here,” Jair Bolsonaro said in an interview. Folha de São Paulo one day after the US elections.
The attempted attack by the “Joker of Brasilia”, a far-right man who had threatened Lula and Alexandre de Moraes (minister of the Supreme Court) on social networks, supporter of the conspiratorial ideas of QAnon and convicted anti-communist, has been frozen optimism. . Bolsonarist. The real bombshell arrived on Tuesday, November 19 in the morning. As the G20 presidents prepared the closing session, the Federal Police (PF) made public “Operation Countercoup”, which revealed a plan to assassinate Lula, Geraldo Alckmin (current vice president of Brazil) and Alexandre de Moraes at the end of 2022. Four of the soldiers and a federal police officer were arrested.
As the contents of the plan to assassinate Lula with poison were revealed, panic gripped the Bolsonaro clan. The police investigation placed Walter Braga Netto, defense minister under the Bolsonaro government and vice-presidential candidate in 2022, at the epicenter of the criminal conspiracy.
General and black children
“Operation Countercoup” gathers evidence of Jair Bolsonaro’s direct participation in the attempted coup and the assassination of Lula. General Mário Fernandes, then number two in the General Secretariat of the Presidency, confirmed, according to the report, that Jair Bolsonaro had authorized everything. The so-called Green and Yellow Puñal Plan was printed at the Planalto Palace (seat of the presidency) and presented at a meeting at the Alvorada Palace (official residence of the president), at which Bolsonaro was present.
The coup and attempted assassination of Lula began to be planned, according to police, during a meeting at the home of Walter Braga Netto. The general would have assumed the coordination of black children (members of the special operations corps) who would try to liquidate Lula, Alckmin and Moraes. In addition, Netto would have suggested that the expenses of the operation could come from the coffers of the Liberal Party. Research reveals that the children red They possessed “weapons of war used by fighting groups” and favored details on the agenda of their objectives.
Alexandre de Moraes was the closest target to death: he found himself in the crosshairs of a sniper who decided to abort the operation due to a last-minute change of plan. minute. What is missing for Jair Bolsonaro and General Braga Netto to be arrested, Ricardo Noblat, one of Brazil’s most prestigious political analysts, wrote on Tuesday.
Bolsonaro Prison
After two days of confusion on the far right, the federal police launched the last fireworks on Thursday afternoon: they handed over to the Supreme Court the question at the timeaccusing Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others of “attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état and criminal organization.” On the list of accused are generals Braga Netto and Augusto Heleno (former minister of the Institutional Security Cabinet), as well as Alexandre Ramagem, former director of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin). The Supreme Court will submit the report to the public prosecutor’s office, responsible for executing the complaint, probably in early 2025. Jair Bolsonaro risks a 30-year prison sentence and political disqualification.
“Operation Backlash” puts Jair Bolsonaro on the ropes. The former president was already strongly compromised due to his multiple links with the anti-democratic events of January 8, 2023 and the appearance of minutes of the coupa draft decree authorizing a coup d’état.
However, the federal police have intensified Bolsonaro’s involvement in recent days, revealing the existence of a criminal organization that acted to attempt to carry out a coup, attack institutions, illegally sell state jewels, defrauding vaccination certificates, spying on political opponents and murder. their adversaries.
“The events leave Bolsonaro very touched. This practically ends the possibility of being amnestied and contesting the 2026 elections in person again and modifying the judicial decision in this sense,” says Sérgio Praça, professor at the Getúlio Vargas School of Social Sciences. Foundation. in interview with e.lDiario.es.
The amnesty project is almost buried. “It makes no sense to talk about amnesty for those convicted of the January 8, 2023 coup d’état given the current situation,” Gilmar Mendes, Minister of the STF, said on Thursday. The Workers’ Party (PT) took advantage of the situation to ask Artur Lira, president of the board of directors of the Congress, to suspend the amnesty project sine die.
Political leadership in decline
After the brief parenthesis of the Trump effect, Bolsonaro’s political leadership is seriously compromised. The eventful week in Brazil reinforced the former president’s loneliness. Brazil’s conservative bosses are starting to abandon it to its fate.
“His peak was in 2018, when he was elected. From that moment on, he only refused, because he did not know how to run the country,” a conservative leader told journalist Raquel Landim. As if that were not enough, the inclusion in the list of accused of Valdemar de Costa Netro, president of the Liberal Party (PL), affects the main opposition party.
The October municipal elections, well below the PL’s expectations, had already brought to the fore new ultra alternatives. On the one hand, the coach The radical Pablo Marçal appears very well placed in the presidential elections. On the other hand, União Brasil, a powerful conservative party, has already announced that it will have its own candidate. The deployments of question at the time They could cause, in the words of Sérgio Praça, a distance between Bolsonaro’s party and the far right: “In the PL, there are not only extremists. There are more sensible people, less prone to dictatorships and coups. With the accusation of Valdemar Costa Neto, which weakens the PL, the party will end up migrating towards the center.”
For President Lula, who has lost popularity this year, the coup plot is a lifeline. “I have to be grateful now because I am alive. The attempt to poison me and Alckmin didn’t work. “We are there,” he declared this Thursday from the Planalto Palace. Victimization has changed sides. If until now it was Jair Bolsonaro who used the attack suffered during the 2002 electoral campaign as a joker to strengthen his image, Lula is already riding the wave of the assassination attempt. “I don’t want to poison anyone. The only thing I want is that at the end of my mandate, we demoralize, with figures, those who govern before us,” added Lula.
The Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) has already asked the Supreme Court for the preventive detention of Jair Bolsonaro, which is unlikely according to most analysts. “Bolsonaro is not going to stop being a popular leader. Many of his supporters will see these events as a conspiracy by the Supreme Court, the PT, the media, in short, conspiracy theories,” says Sérgio Praça. The Supreme Court will hardly order the preventive detention of the former president, because it could provoke an uprising of an angry crowd and follow the same radical line as the “Joker of Brasilia”, the man-bomb who accelerated the headquarters of Jair Bolsonaro.
