Brazil’s Center Bloc Parties Want Expanded Law Against “Unfaithful” Deputies

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – At a meeting in the Chamber last Wednesday, October 16th, the leaders of this bloc began to discuss the outlines of a bill that hardens the punishment for deputies who change their parties during their term of office.

And not without cause: confident that Bolsonaro will leave the PSL sooner or later, center-right politicians want to prevent him from capitalizing on the cleavage and pushing dissidents into a party under construction.

Tailored to torment the lives of Bolsonarists, the proposal provides that even those who leave the party for which they were elected to affiliate with another newly created one will lose their mandate. Currently, “unfaithful” deputies run this risk if they do not wait for the so-called “partisan window” – a period allowed for the changeover, six months before the election – but there are exceptions. One of them is migration to a party that has just been created. The other is the “just cause” exit.

Behind the scenes, Bolsonaro’s allies say that the operation triggered on Tuesday, October 15th, by the Federal Police to comply with search and seizure warrants at addresses linked to the president of the PSL party, Deputy Luciano Bivar, in Recife, may be a “reason” for deputies to try to save their terms in court, even changing their party.

Bivar is the target of an investigation into “paper” candidacies, which allegedly have been used to divert resources from the government electoral fund in last year’s campaign.

Bolsonaro and his followers seek a legal loophole to leave the party without the deputies being chastened; hence he called for the opening of the PSL’s “black box” and asked for an audit of the party’s accounts.

“We want transparency. I don’t want to have an issue popping up and then the press blaming me (saying) ‘ah, you didn’t know?'”, said the president on Saturday in São Paulo. The statement is being construed by Bivar’s disciples as a “message” that the head of the PSL would be the target of retaliation and tough days ahead.

However, in the Chamber, the Centrão – which includes parties such as DEM, PP, PL, PRB and Solidariedade – pledges to block the President’s path to prevent him from promoting a “speculative attack” on the center-right and taking the PSL rebels to another party.

In private conversations, the bloc’s deputies – who control some 230 of the 513 deputies – say that allowing Bolsonaro to promote the “fattening” of a new party on the eve of an election year would be “shooting himself in the foot”.

The outcome of the 2020 municipal disputes is regarded as the first test for the president’s power project, as he is seeking re-election. Away from the spotlight, there is a strong movement of Bolsonarists to set up “Conservadores”, a party that is expected to appear under the umbrella of the former União Democrática Nacional (UDN), dissolved after the military coup of 1964.

Even so, Bolsonaro and his supporters are first trying to oust Bivar from control over PSL and choose the candidates for the party. Only if this strategy fails will they gamble on the new party.

“Whoever wants to leave the PSL, let them leave, God take them, but leave the mandate to us,” reacted the leader of the PSL in the Senate, Major Olímpio (SP).

According to this senator, federal Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro , the president’s “#3” son, encouraged a “conspiracy” to implode the PSL. “Eduardo is one of the heads of this schizophrenic power project,” he criticized. “They want to remove Bivar from the PSL presidency and dismiss the executive board to leave only the Aryans there, the pure race.”

The senator said he had no doubt that a bill to punish “more rigorously” the infidels will have Congressional support. “This brings together the left-wing, the center, the majority of the right-wing and it will be passed quickly. It’s game over,” he said. In his opinion, to create a party now would be nothing more than a move to shelter the “traitors” of the PSL, who, for him, “must pay the price” by losing their mandate.

Olímpio was in charge of the PSL in São Paulo, but was replaced four months ago by Eduardo Bolsonaro. So far, the deputy has ordered the dismissal of the presidents of 73 of the 280 municipal PSL directorates in the state.

Although the bill’s intent to create a new setback for Bolsonaro and his group has not yet left the talking paper stage, the issue has begun to stir up controversy. “Every law of electoral convenience is always dangerous,” argued Deputy Marcelo Ramos, who is a lawyer. “I even think it is right to debate this issue, but not as an instrument to make it impossible for deputies to leave the PSL. Why didn’t anyone talk about it a year ago?”

Bivar called an extraordinary party convention for Friday. The meeting was called to vote on changes in the party’s bylaws, which destabilize the Bolsonarist wing. In addition to controlling the PSL, the duel also involves money.

The party ceased to be irrelevant and was the most voted party in the 2018 elections, in the wake of Bolsonaro’s election. With this accreditation, it could receive something close to R$1 billion (US$250 million) in public funds by 2022, the year of presidential elections.

Source: O Estado de S. Paulo

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