Even allies of Guilherme Delite (PP-SP), such as Rio de Janeiro Governor Claudio Castro (PL), were angry that the lawmaker had not prepared a report and accelerated the processing of the anti-faction bill introduced by the Palacio do Planalto. São Paulo’s Public Security Secretary Delight was credited with “taking the lead” in discussing the document, giving Lula’s government room to react in an attack that blocked changes included by the rapporteur and championed by Bolsonaro’s opposition.
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Last Wednesday, Mr. Castro appealed to House Speaker Hugo Motta (R-PB) to postpone the PL vote scheduled for last Wednesday for 30 days. At the end of the night, Motta extended his analysis of the project until next Tuesday (18th).
This request was supported by Romeu Zema (Novo-MG), Ronaldo Caiado (União Brasil-GO), Jorginho Melo (PL-SC), members of the so-called Consorcio da Paz, formed by right-wing governors, and Selina León (PP), deputy governor of the Federal District.
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According to group members, Delight was unable to prolong the discussion on the topic that they are currently pursuing. The strategy is to intensify the depletion of Lula’s government in the security field, an issue seen as a weakness of the PT, which has put the president on the defensive since a major operation against the Castro-led Commando Vermelho (CV) that killed 121 people in the northern districts of the capital, Rio de Janeiro.
The idea of postponing the vote was also supported by Jair Bolsonaro’s PL bench. In response to questions from the column’s team, party leaders disagreed about their intention to increase pressure on Lula’s government, insisting that the move was due to the need to reach an agreement between rebels and government supporters on the final document.
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Mr. Motta arrived to guide the project, but Mr. Delight himself echoed calls for the discussion to be postponed. The Chamber of Commerce president then moved the vote to next Tuesday. This document will be the only item on the House’s agenda for the day.
“My replacement was never the finish line, it was the starting point,” Delight summed up, acknowledging the long period of pressure to discuss with the PL.
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For Mr. Castro’s allies, the longer it takes for the vote to take place, the better.
“The ideal would be to hold public hearings, testimonies, meetings and keep the issue going as long as it is possible to put the Lula government up against the wall,” insists the PL governor’s interlocutor.
A series of new surveys released by Genial/Quest last Wednesday, the first conducted by the institute since the police action, show that an improving trend in PT members’ ratings in recent months was interrupted by progress in negotiations over Donald Trump’s tariffs. Currently, Lula is approved by 47% of the population and rejected by 50%. In the previous survey released in October, the percentages were 48% and 49%, respectively.
Last week, after a period of silence during which he left the government’s response to his subordinates, including Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, Lula labeled the Rio operation a “genocide” and “tragic”. According to Genial/Quaest, 67% of Brazilians support police action.
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According to Genial/Quest itself, 73% support classifying criminal factions and militias as terrorist organizations. For Castro’s allies, this is another piece of information that validates their strategy of prolonging the government’s bloodletting and shaping the document to suit the interests of the Bolsonarist right.
However, Mr Delight submitted his interim report last Friday (7th), just two hours after being appointed as rapporteur. Since then, in response to Planalto’s reaction, the government has presented four versions and abandoned the inclusion of amendments to the anti-terror law in the document presented by the government, in addition to the provision that the Federal Police (PF) will only engage in the investigation of organized crime in cases of national scope and with the permission of state governors.
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None of the four documents satisfied Planalt or his opponents. Postponing the vote until next Tuesday will necessarily mean creating a fifth version of the bill.
But it is no longer clear whether that attrition will be the same for President Lula, at least from the perspective of the Castro regime.
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