At a recent event, Lula da Silva said that “Congress has never had the low level it has now”, in front of Hugo Motta, the body’s president, who listened in silence. And he added: “that extreme right that was elected in the last election is the worst thing there is”.
It is not possible to disagree with the president of Brazil when one thinks of the deputies Carla Zambelli, convicted of associating with a hacker to defraud the justice system, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who has been in the USA for six months pressuring Washington to increase tariffs and punish Brazilian authorities, or Zé Trovão and Antônio Doido, whose noms de guerre are self-explanatory. Or even the 28 parliamentarians who use the title of pastor, missionary, bishop or reverend plus the 14 captains, colonels, lieutenants, sergeants or delegates – there is even one who accumulates, Pastor Sergeant Isidório, a deputy who declares himself ex-gay.
The President of the Republic cannot be contradicted either if we take into account that 111 of the 513 deputies have pending legal matters, including Chiquinho Brazão, accused of ordering the execution of Marielle Franco.
The quality, or lack thereof, of the Brazilian National Congress, the result of the digital age that not only gave a voice but also elected a large legion of imbeciles with the votes of even larger legions of imbeciles, is not, in fact, Lula’s responsibility.
But the quality of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), whose 11 members are appointed by the President of the Republic, is. And then Lula has not been judicious – to say the least – in his choice.
By the time you read this text, Jorge Messias has probably already been appointed to a vacancy on the supreme court. Now, without calling into question Messias’ legal knowledge, the main criteria for nomination published in the press are 1) being a minister and a lifelong ally of Lula and 2) being evangelical, the segment of the electorate that the president lost to the extreme right and wants to recover in the 2026 election.
Previously, he had appointed another member of the government, even more Lulu and even more political, the then Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, who replaced the retired judge Ricardo Lewandowski, who, in turn, took Dino’s place as Minister of Justice, just like that, without periods of quarantine, mourning, disgust.
And before that, it was Cristiano Zanin who changed, overnight, from the role of Lula’s personal lawyer to that of STF judge.
In fact, in the previous term, in 2009, Lula had chosen Dias Toffoli, then a young lawyer from the Workers’ Party, to the court, without any hesitation.
Of course, this is not a unique case in the democratic world: Donald Trump openly partisans the American supreme. And Jair Bolsonaro listed as parameters for naming his two chosen ones “someone with whom I can have a beer”, first, and “someone terribly evangelical”, second, the same criteria that Lula now uses with Messiah.
But so, in any future event, Lula risks hearing it said – and having to listen in silence – that the STF never had the low quality it has now.
Journalist, correspondent in São Paulo
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