Dispute for Rosa’s vacancy in the STF advances under fear of Lula – 06/02/2023 – Power

The appointment of lawyer Cristiano Zanin to the STF (Federal Supreme Court) intensified the dispute behind the scenes for the succession of Rosa Weber, the second vacancy that President Lula (PT) will be able to fill.

Rosa’s retirement comes in October.

There is pressure from militancy so that the representative does not reduce female participation in the court and replace the magistrate with another woman. However, the Chief Executive has been fearful in reserved conversations about adopting criteria of representativeness in choosing nominees for the STF.

The bet of Lula’s interlocutors is that he should prioritize the choice of someone trustworthy for the post, regardless of gender.

People close to Lula admit, however, that there will be strong pressure for him to choose a woman. This is because the female electorate was fundamental for him to defeat former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

In addition, the first lady, Rosângela da Silva, Janja, exerts great influence over the president and defends the expansion of the female presence in spaces of power.

The pressure may increase even more: this Thursday (1st), after Zanin was chosen, the president of the STF, Rosa Weber, criticized the lack of women in the court.

Two women who Lula likes for the post are jurists Carol Proner and Gisele Cittadino. Both have a good curriculum and are close to the PT. There are also the names of Adriana Cruz and Vera Lúcia Araújo, who are black women.

However, the assessment is that Lula tends to use the relationship of trust with the candidates as his main criterion.

In this logic, the chances of the president of the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União), Bruno Dantas, of the minister Luís Felipe Salomão, of the STJ (Superior Court of Justice), and even of the minister of Justice, Flávio Dino (PSB), grow.

Salomão has the support of Minister Alexandre de Moraes, who has great power of influence as he is the magistrate who conducts investigations that affect Bolsonaro. Bruno Dantas, in turn, has good transit in the Senate, which needs to approve the nomination, and is close to Senator Renan Calheiros.

Lawyer Pierpaolo Bottini, national secretary of Justice in the Lula government between 2005 and 2007, is on the outside in the dispute. In addition, Lula’s interlocutors do not rule out that the PT candidate resorts to a strategy similar to that adopted by former President Bolsonaro in 2020.

In the first vacancy he had the right to nominate, he chose the then federal judge of second instance Kassio Nunes Marques. The nomination surprised observers in Brasilia, but is currently considered by people close to Lula to be an example of political success from a pragmatic point of view.

The consensus around the president is about the need to choose someone who has a guarantor profile. That is, that it has a vision of law that privileges the rights of those being investigated and imposes limits on investigators.

The diagnosis of allies is that previous PT governments, both Lula and former president Dilma Rousseff (PT), did not give due importance to the choices for the STF.

Petistas resent the performance in the past in the court of ministers Luís Roberto Barroso, Luiz Fux, Cármen Lúcia and Edson Fachin.

SEE UPCOMING RETIREMENTS AT SUPREMO

GOVERNMENT 2023-2026

GOVERNMENT 2027-2030

• Luiz Fux (Apr.28)
• Carmen Lúcia (Apr.29)
• Gilmar Mendes (Dec.30)

GOVERNMENT 2031-2034

• Edson Fachin (Feb.33)
• Luís Roberto Barroso (mar.33)

GOVERNMENT 2039-2042

GOVERNMENT 2043-2046

• Alexandre de Moraes (Dec.43)

GOVERNMENT 2047-2050

• Kassio Nunes Marques (May 47)
• André Mendonça (Dec.47)
• Cristiano Zanin* (Nov.50)

*If approved by the Senate