Bolsonaro uses disguise to cross desert by 2030 – 27/06/2023 – Politics

In three decades in politics, Jair Bolsonaro took advantage of the Chamber’s tribune to draw attention, used campaign platforms to manufacture enemies and resorted to the Presidency’s microphone to try to expand his powers.

The defeat at the polls, the embarrassed departure from office and, now, the threat of punishment by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) strip the former president of some of his main tools. Everything indicates that Bolsonaro will need to cross the desert of ineligibility.

The former president tries on a traditional politician guise to preserve strength for the next eight years. About to be judged, Bolsonaro gave interviews to a press that he treats as a rival (for the Sheetthere were two), delved into party bureaucracy (despite a long-standing avowed distaste for parties), and tried to display distance from some strident allies.

Bolsonaro made a tactical choice to cushion the damage he is likely to suffer. It is a move to try to circumvent, as far as possible, the effects of his conversion into a politician with temporarily blocked expectations of power and without the megaphone of public office.

The former president took advantage of the temperature of the TSE trial to increase his exposure. On Sunday (25), he appeared at Allianz Parque to watch a Brazilian Championship match and even gave an interview about football to presenter Milton Neves, on Bandeirantes radio.

At this stage, Bolsonaro followed the booklet of professional politicians and agreed to speak with a vehicle that he insisted on treating as an enemy for four years. The former president gave an interview to Sheet on Thursday (22) and another on Sunday.

While at the Planalto Palace, Bolsonaro elected the newspaper as a symbol of his clash with the press. In the first year of government, he said he had no interest in reading the Sheet and that no minister should do so. He even made a boycott threat by saying he would not buy products from newspaper advertisers.

Attacking the press and keeping distance from vehicles that he considered uncomfortable was an important political instrument for Bolsonaro. The objective was to discredit reports on negative topics and disseminate among its most agitated base the idea that only information released by the government and its allies was reliable.

Out of office and on the eve of a probable conviction, the former president made an exception – or two. He commented on the TSE judgment and analyzed his political future in interviews with reporter Marianna Holanda, in Brasília, and columnist Mônica Bergamo, in São Paulo.

Bolsonaro knows that the process in the electoral court is an event of public interest and he considered that the moment was propitious to show his vision about the trial also in a vehicle that makes a critical coverage of governments and politicians in general.

In both interviews, the former president tried to pass messages to a wider audience than the playpen of his years at Palácio da Alvorada and made clear his intention to warn that he wants to stay in the game, even ineligible. He stated that he intends to stay active in politics and that he has plans for a successor in 2026.

Bolsonaro’s preparation for the eight years of ineligibility also involves building a support network within the traditional party structure. The former president negotiated his hiring for a paid position in the PL, participated in affiliation campaigns to the acronym and entered into the articulations for the launch of candidacies by the party.

Bolsonaro had already been getting used to this style for some years, ever since he changed the tone of his criticism of the centrão (“the cream of the worst in Brazil”) to close an alliance with the group that supported him in the Presidency until December 2022.

Both then and now, the goal was to ensure their survival. In government, Bolsonaro increased his influence to the center and installed those legends in the heart of the Planalto in order to remain in office and increase his chances of re-election. On the eve of ineligibility, he hopes that his work as an employee and ally of Valdemar Costa Neto will help him maintain his strength.

Without a mandate, party life becomes one of Bolsonaro’s main channels of political action. In exchange for boosting the acronym, the PL will give the former president the money and space he needs to keep himself in the spotlight and demonstrate that he is a character that retains mass support.

Prominence in acts of affiliation should give Bolsonaro a platform, while participation in the next municipal elections would be an opportunity to test his potential for transferring votes.

Using the PL machine for the 2024 disputes, in this sense, would be a preliminary phase for the creation of a successor. If Bolsonaro’s allies fail in the municipal races, he will lose influence over choosing a right-wing presidential candidate in 2026.

At this point, another adjustment made by the former president comes in. Bolsonaro has shown signs that he can make choices that match the cardinals of traditional politics – such as the probable endorsement of the re-election of Ricardo Nunes (MDB) in São Paulo, raffling off the candidacy of Ricardo Salles (PL).

Optimistic centrão operators would like Bolsonaro’s steps to soften the image that the former president himself built over decades. Converted to the political world’s playbook, according to this view, he would avoid provocations to the TSE on the eve of the trial and still camouflage the radical positions of the past, for which he will probably be punished.

Bolsonaro has already used the booklet by Valdemar Costa Neto, Ciro Nogueira and Michel Temer in other times of crisis. The experiences never lasted long.