1/8 CPI: Understand Lula and Bolsonaro’s 5 focal points – 04/22/2023 – Power

The joint CPI to investigate the January 8 coup attacks should be created in the middle of next week in Congress. It will be made up of deputies and senators and, now, it is of interest both to the opposition, from whom the idea of ​​creating it came, and to the base of the Lula government, previously resistant and now favorable.

The creation of the commission became inevitable in view of the recent crisis of the GSI (Institutional Security Office), which caused the first fall of a minister in the current PT administration after three months and 19 days of the beginning of the mandate.

The crisis that led to the departure of the head of the GSI was triggered by the disclosure, by CNN Brasil, of images of the internal security circuit during the invasion of the headquarters of the Presidency of the Republic, showing a collaborative action of agents with coup leaders and the presence of Gonçalves Days on site.

The focus of the investigation of the CPI will be Bolsonaristas, responsible for the coup attacks on the main buildings of the three Powers. This includes the vandals themselves, the organizers of the acts, the financers of the camps and caravans and intellectual authors, such as former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

1) When does the CPI start working? There is still no set date. The first step is the creation of the CPI, which occurs with the reading of its request during a session of Congress. Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG) promises this for this coming week.

The reading of the request by Pacheco means that the commission was created, but it does not mean its immediate installation.

Before the commission begins activities, there is still a deadline for senators to include or remove their signatures from the application.

In addition, the installation actually happens only with the first session of the commission. For this, it is necessary that the party blocks indicate their representatives for the composition of the collegiate.

2) What should be the main focus of the investigation? This depends both on who will form the committee’s core command (chairman, vice-chairman and rapporteur) and on the lineup of its members (deputies and senators), a movement that depends on the party blocs and their commands.

Those with a majority in the CPI have more votes to approve or reject requests to call for depositions or breach of secrecy, for example. The majority is also decisive for the approval of the commission’s final report.

It was like this in the recent Covid CPI, when the opposition to then-president Bolsonaro dominated both the votes and the narrative for testimonials, breaches of secrecy and the final report.

According to the Lula government, his support base will be entitled to 21 of the 32 collegiate seats — 11 in the Federal Senate and 10 in the Chamber of Deputies.

With Lula’s base in fact in control of the CPI of 8/1, these below are the main focuses, in line with what the STF (Federal Supreme Court) and the Federal Police are already investigating:

• Identify possible intellectual authors of the coup attacks, and it is this front that may reach Bolsonaro’s eventual responsibility in promoting radical actions;

• Map the financiers of the coup acts and those responsible for the logistics of the camp and transportation of Bolsonaristas to Brasília;

• Identify and individualize the conduct of each of those involved in the depredation of historic buildings in the federal capital.

3) Who came up with the idea of ​​the CPI? The proposal for a CPI on the 1/8 attacks came from Bolsonaristas themselves, responsible for the coup attacks on the headquarters of the three Powers.

Cornered by the repercussions of the attack and with Bolsonaro isolated in the US, they saw in the commission’s proposal a way to counterattack the real narrative of 8/1, insinuating, for example, that there were Lula sympathizers infiltrated among the participants in the attacks, which it was never presented with minimal evidence.

The opposition also wants to use the CPI to attack what they call the federal government’s omissions that day. This thesis was strengthened now with the crisis provoked by the new images of the 8/1 in Planalto.

4) Why did the Lula government change its mind and start supporting it? The government only changed its mind when the creation of the CPI became inevitable with the crisis that led to the departure of the head of the GSI. The Lula government had been refusing to disclose the full images of 1/8, which should also become the target of the Congressional CPI.

A week after the attacks, the government released edited videos, in particular with excerpts that showed that the militants were allies of Bolsonaro. However, he refused a request from the Sheetvia the Access to Information Act, to release the entirety of the recordings.

5) What are the government’s concerns with the CPI? There are basically four concerns:

• It initially seeks to have control of the commission, with allies such as the chairman and rapporteur, in addition to the majority of its members;

• Wants to prevent deputies and senators from concentrating forces and attention on the CPI and leaving in the background votes considered important by the government this year, such as new fiscal rules and tax reform, in addition to provisional measures in the queue for voting before they expire;

• Manage to stop the propagation of false theses about the coup acts about the 8/1. That is, to turn Bolsonarists responsible for acts against the three Powers into victims;

• To prevent the wear and tear with the functioning of the CPI from disturbing the government’s plans to consolidate a solid allied base both in the Chamber and in the Senate, something that still seems distant;