Sergio Moro & Jair Bolsonaro

Image: Cholera Joy
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By GERSON ALMEIDA*

In place of your power blueprint, the energies of Sergio Moro are focused on avoid his arrest and fight not to lose his mandate

Upon leaving a meeting at the home of the newly elected president, on November 1, 2018, Sérgio Moro declared that he was very “honored” by the invitation to take over the Ministry of Justice in the government of Jair Bolsonaro and, furthermore, made it public who had negotiated a financial “guarantee” for her family, “I asked that my family not be destitute, without a pension. It was the only condition I placed to assume” (G1 Portal, 24/04/2020). Once this agreement was reached, he resigned as a judge and took another step towards his strategy for power, which included his appointment to be Minister of the STF and then run for President of the Republic.

Even though much is yet to come to light, the set of information available is sufficient to conclude that that meeting was the moment when Sérgio Moro and Jair Bolsonaro reached the terms of an agreement – ​​which had already been sewn together for a long time – to deepen the intense collaboration that until that moment had been successful. The political capital of Sérgio Moro was the relevant services he provided by withdrawing the candidate preferred by the population from the electoral process, something decisive for the election of Jair Bolsonaro.

Both were very aware of the role they played as heads of two factions that were essential to make viable the articulation of a broad coup plot that had a great penetration in State institutions and led the country to a political, social, cultural, economic and democratic regression. The fact that many of the coup agents took an oath to uphold constitutional precepts is an aspect that increases the gravity of their crimes and tarnishes their honor as a public servant.

This field was meticulously constructed to create the appropriate political environment to facilitate the coup in Dilma Rousseff’s government in 2016, and brought together all kinds of opposed interests – including those in the criminal sphere – that could no longer tolerate living with their own inability to build a majority in society and were eager to impose their regressive policies.

As they never had an effective commitment to respecting popular sovereignty, the traditional elites and their associates decided to take control of the country's course back into their hands and were not ashamed to act against popular sovereignty, as historically they always did in periods when political power has escaped, at least in part, their control.

Given the coup, they immediately tried to put into practice their policies organically associated with big international capital and hostile to any project other than income concentration, social exclusion and environmental degradation, calling it a “bridge to the future”.

However, the cohesion of this coup-mongering camp was doomed to a state of permanent tension, either because of the breadth of aggregated interests; whether due to the ambition for power of Jair Bolsonaro and Sérgio Moro, which would inevitably lead to conflict over leadership of the field of betrayal of democracy, which, despite Jair Bolsonaro having been elected president, he still needed to consolidate himself as the uncontested leader of the field. So much so that none of them demobilized their leaders when they sealed the deepening of their collaboration agreement, as both knew that the other was capable of anything to achieve their goals and knew very well the risks they ran, should one of them turn their back on the other.

The tension generated by the power dispute between the two factions meant that Jair Bolsonaro had to anticipate by 18 months the discussion for Celso de Mello's vacancy in the STF, whose compulsory retirement would only be in November of the following year (2020), revealing the harshness of the behind-the-scenes struggle and the growing mutual distrust between the two factions. In an interview with Radio Bandeirantes, on May 12, 2019, Jair Bolsonaro stated that “The first vacancy I have [in the STF], I have this commitment with Moro [to nominate him], and I intend… I intend not. God willing, we will fulfill this commitment”. He stumbled over the words, but made an attempt to placate his eager partner to redeem the pledged invoices.

It is known that, like Jair Bolsonaro, Sérgio Moro acted tirelessly to achieve his goals and did not fail to use any type of violence and artifices typical of serious criminals. For this, he carried out actions on an industrial scale, contrary to the legal process and surgically linked to the political and electoral calendar of the country, always benefiting only one side; he systematically used methods typical of criminal groups, as shown by the denunciations made by Tacla Durán and Tony Garcia.

The scale of evil, lack of character and acts of corruption denounced by both can only be compared to the scripts of the series that deal with the trajectory of the great leaders of criminal organizations, with the exception that the others did not manage to become embedded in important institutions. of the State of their countries, on the scale achieved by Sérgio Moro in Brazil.

To be able to go so far in his criminal career, Sérgio Moro built a squad that acted as a praetorian guard that protected his crimes and, at the same time, benefited from huge sums, as shown by the example of the foundation organized by Deltan Dallagnol, coordinator of the task force from Lava-jato, which always acted as an assistant to Sérgio Moro, despite acting in the Public Ministry.

For Gilmar Mendes, minister of the STF, this foundation would provide Sérgio Moro and Deltan Dallagnol with “an electoral fund greater than the electoral funds of the political parties”, showing that they “were setting up a machine even to make money” (capital letter, 05.01.2023). This “money making” machine also knows how to make money “disappear”, as shown by the correction by the National Council of Justice (CNJ) on the 13th. Federal Court and the Federal Court of the 4th. Region (TRF-4), which is after the whereabouts of almost three billion that the Lava Jato operation raised in its leniency agreements and award-winning collaboration, of which there are records of only R$ 200 million, as reported by the Marcelo Auler's blog.

This eagerness to earn money and ensure control over huge resources – which they dubbed the fight against corruption – was the means of ensuring the financial autonomy necessary to finance the faction’s power project and enable the abandonment of the partner, a company that started becoming increasingly inconvenient and whose government was experiencing increasing political difficulties.

So much so that just sixteen months after taking office and discrediting his effective appointment to the STF, Sérgio Moro thought it was time to abandon the partnership, return to investing in the role of incorruptible and, thus, increase his power in society. That’s when he pounced on his partner and announced his removal from the government, claiming Jair Bolsonaro’s insistence on wanting to interfere in his area of ​​activity (nominations for the PF) and, thus, “focus on ongoing investigations against corruption” .

Despite this movement having shaken the cohesion of the government support field and having had the support of the business press, the measurement of forces made between the two factions showed Sérgio Moro that, now, who had the pen and the confidence of the majority of the coup plotter was Jair Bolsonaro and not him. Sérgio Moro did not take long in the illusion of presenting himself as a critic of political polarization, occupying generous space in the business media, with statements such as “I don’t want to speak ill of anyone, but, in fact, the two [Lula and Bolsonaro] are very similar . They end up feeding each other because they flirt with extremism” (Veja, 15/02/22). But he quickly realized that the role he had left in the coup camp was subordinate to Jair Bolsonaro and not his leadership.

Later events showed this, so much so that Sérgio Moro only made his election as senator for Paraná possible, when he decided to genuflect and assume the role of Jair Bolsonaro's electoral supporter, presenting himself as the true candidate of Bolsonarism. A very different situation from the previous election, when Sérgio Moro was decisive for Jair Bolsonaro’s victory.

Now, that the STF has already defined Sérgio Moro as a partial judge and that the National Council of Justice (CNJ) has determined an extraordinary correction to verify the functioning of the 13th. Federal Court of the Judiciary Subsection of Curitiba and the offices of judges belonging to the 8th. Class of the Federal Regional Court of the 4th. Region (TRF4), a true pandora's box is being opened and will tell the backstage of one of the most sordid periods in Brazilian history, which includes reports of destroyed HDs, films used to blackmail and a lot of public money with no known whereabouts.

In place of his power project, Sérgio Moro's energies are focused on avoiding his arrest and fighting not to lose his mandate, as has already happened with his assistant, Deltan Dallagnol. That's a good start, but one needs to dig deeper to see how far the ramifications of the faction that used the institutions of democracy to corrupt it and dishonored the oath they took when entering public service. After all, parodying ecclesiastes 12:7, "out of the mire they came, to the mire they must return."

*Gerson Almeida, master in sociology from UFRGS, was secretary of the environment of Porto Alegre and national secretary of social articulation of the general secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic (2007-2011).

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