Bolsonarist target, leader of the PGR list defends pluralism – 08/31/2023 – Politics

Luiza Frischeisen, 57, from Rio de Janeiro, attended a Diretas rally As a teenager, she considers herself a social democrat, chooses the “construction of equality” as the guideline of her 31-year career at the Federal Public Ministry and welcomed the 2022 election year with optimism in their social networks.

He posted on that January 1st: “In our round Earth, with the SUS, vaccines and science, with empathy for the vulnerable, I will continue to defend the Constitution, equal chances, the Republic and Democracy, the electronic ballot box, the elections! Happy new year! And let’s go!”.

Anyone looking for the name of the deputy attorney general of the Republic on Google today is faced with another very popular search related to her: “Luiza Frischeisen left”.

She finds humor in the ideological framework. “It kind of appeared on the internet, when I ran for office in 2019 and 2021”, he says, recalling the first times he entered the triple list suggested by his category for the top of the PGR (Attorney General of the Republic) — the first time, it was the second most voted candidate and, subsequently, headed the preference of colleagues.

“I have this platform that I told you about: I am a great defender of social rights, of women’s rights”, she says. “Then the people there… I don’t know what happened, something from Bolsonaristas, from those who supported Bolsonaro, supported Aras”, she conjectures. She lost the position to Augusto Aras on both occasions.

The president of the country receives recommendations from the ANPR (National Association of Public Prosecutors) for the post since 2001 and decides whether to follow them or not. It’s not obligatory, but from 2003 onwards, everyone collected a PGR from there.

Jair Bolsonaro (PL) broke the tradition in the first year of his term, repeated the dose two years later, and the support of the class was not enough for Frischeisen to win the vacancy. Aras, who wasn’t even on the list, was chosen both times.

Could this “Luiza of the left” have influenced the disregard for the favorite? He can. But history risks repeating itself in 2023. Frischeisen once again led ANPR’s suggestions, but President Lula (PT) signals that he will continue in this Bolsonarist tone and will ignore the triple list.

Not even Aras himself, torpedoed by the PT for consecutive caresses of Bolsonaro and henchmen until last year, is discarded.

Frischeisen grew up in the turmoil that was the passage from the 1970s to the 1980s, when the military dictatorship was already breathing on machines. The eldest daughter of a Navy officer and a housewife, she grew up in Tijuca. In the same neighborhood in the north of Rio de Janeiro, she studied at a school run by progressive nuns.

The freedom of customs that his generation experienced in Rio, he says, helped to clear up his worldview in his youth.

In 1979, the Amnesty Law returned to Brazil exiles such as Fernando Gabeira, involved in the kidnapping of the American ambassador ten years earlier. Gabeira would mark those times, with his environmentalist ideals, new at the time, and the crochet thong he borrowed from his cousin Leda Nagle to wear on Ipanema beach.

Not that his creation was “the most progressive in the world”, but Frischeisen was also far from the obvious conservatism of the period. “I come from a liberal background.”

An ace in history in high school, she ended up opting for law in the entrance exam, the same course that her father, already in the Navy, had taken. She joined UERJ in 1984 and, during the university season, witnessed a Constitution being drafted in real time. She graduated with the 1988 Magna Carta already on the table.

Joining the Public Ministry, in 1992, coincided with a new social uproar — the attorney general at the time, Aristides Junqueira, became yet another callus for then-president Fernando Collor, denounced for corruption and dismissed by Congress that year.

The attorney left Rio for São Paulo, for her career and also for a partner at the time, and became a master at PUC-SP and a doctor at USP.

His three decades of professional experience crystallized his enthusiasm for causes such as affirmative action and non-prosecution agreements —alternatives agreed between defense and prosecution to replace prison sentences for minor infractions, unburdening the prison system.

As an adviser to the CNJ (National Council of Justice), a post she held from 2013 to 2015, she defended quotas in judge competitions. Affirmative policies have gained space in the Judiciary in the last decade and introduced more plurality in an ecosystem overpopulated by white men.

They are still the majority, especially at the top of the area.

Frischeisen dodges more thorny questions, such as the possibility that Rosa Weber, after retiring, will be replaced by a man on the Federal Supreme Court. This would reduce the female presence in the country’s highest court to a single woman, Cármen Lúcia. “Then we have to talk to the President of the Republic.”

She is also slippery when asked if she has ever been the target of sexism at work. But, in general, it is clear that women, especially black women, are underrepresented in the countryside, he recognizes.

“We have to keep our eyes open. In the Public Ministry we are 30%, we don’t increase. Why, why don’t I attract more women at the base?”

Some situations are no longer acceptable, such as seminars where “it was enough [incluir na mesa] a woman and that was fine”.

And a little more. Frischeisen unnerved Bolsonarists by praising vaccines, criticizing Bolsonaro’s 7th of September in 2021, treating the January 8 attacks in Brasilia as an attempted coup and not ruling out that Lula’s arrest may have been an excess of Lava Jato.

The letter of the law is not the only thing that interests her. In the pile of books, names like the Brazilian Carla Madeiro and the Spanish Rosa Montero. “I’m always reading women.”

In politics, he sympathizes with MPs Tabata Amaral (PSB-SP), Sâmia Bonfim (PSOL-SP), Talíria Petrone (PSOL-RJ), Duda Salabert (PDT-MG) and Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP), all on the left by the current beacons of Brasilia. “I follow all these on Instagram.”

Frischeisen prefers not to reveal his electoral choices, although he admits that his position as a whole gives clues about his preference at the polls. “You can exclude some that I haven’t been voting for in recent years.”

But opting for A or B, for her, does not interfere with the job. “The role of the Public Prosecutor’s Office is to understand and interpret the Constitution, laws and conventions,” she says. “And our Constitution guarantees social rights.” The rest is opposition intrigue.

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LUIZA CRISTINA FONSECA FRISCHEISEN, 57

Graduated in law from UERJ (State University of Rio de Janeiro), holds a master’s degree in State law from PUC-SP and a doctorate in law from USP. She joined the Federal Public Ministry in 1992. In 2015, she became Deputy Attorney General of the Republic. She entered the triple list to head the PGR (Attorney General of the Republic) three times: in 2019, in second place, and in 2021 and 2023 at the top. Augusto Aras was nominated by Jair Bolsonaro the first two times. In the current one, Lula still hasn’t made his choice.