Former Army: coup with Bolsonaro was based on Ives Gandra – 03/16/2024 – Power

Army Commander in 2022, General Freire Gomes stated in a statement to the Federal Police that the meetings with then-president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and his ministers about the possibility of disrespecting the election results were based on interpretations by jurist Ives Gandra Martins about the Constitution.

According to him, the meetings presented Gandra’s theses on the “use of the Armed Forces as a Moderating Power, based on article 142 of the Constitution”.

Freire Gomes told the PF that he explained that “there was no possibility of using” the aforementioned constitutional provision as discussed in the meetings.

Ives Gandra’s thesis is that one of the Powers can activate the Armed Forces when it is in conflict with another Power.

A Sheet the jurist stated that he never defended ideas that would allow any type of institutional rupture and that his thesis on the article in question dates back to 1997.

“My interpretation is that, if one day there is a conflict between Powers and a Power asks the Armed Forces, in that case it could, for that concrete, specific, exclusive point, never to deconstitute Powers, decide. And I said that it was a hypothesis that would never would happen,” he says.

“My interpretation is very clear, where I always said that I could not deconstitute Powers. Clearly, institutional rupture would never be allowed in a democratic Constitution.”

The jurist is also mentioned in a dialogue between retired colonel Laercio Vergílio and Ailton Barros, a captain expelled from the Army who encouraged a military coup in conversations with Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s aide-de-camp.

In an audio, the retired general tells Barros that it is necessary to carry out a “special operation” that would be responsible for keeping Bolsonaro in power, despite Lula’s (PT) electoral victory.

Vergílio denied to the PF that the idea would be to carry out a coup because, in his view, this crime would only be configured if the mobilization took place after Lula took office. Before that, it would only be the defense of the Constitution.

“It clarifies that the so-called special operation would be a later phase and that everything should be carried out within law and order, legally based on the Federal Constitution, mainly with the arguments presented by jurist Ives Gandra Martins”, says the police report on the testimony .

Vergílio said he made this suggestion because he and Ailton were “concerned” about the political situation in the country.

The PF also reports that it found a private conversation between the general and Colonel Elcio Franco, who was executive secretary of the Ministry of Health in the Bolsonaro government.

In the dialogue, Franco blames the Army High Command for hindering a movement to prevent Lula’s inauguration.

Vergílio says that he did not know of any initiative by Franco to plan a coup, but that, as he lived in Brasília and knew many military personnel in command positions, “he would have tried through his contacts to convince General Freire to accept the legal arguments presented by the jurist Ives Gandra”.

He said that, from what he knew, Franco even sent messages to the Army commander “in order to accept the legal arguments proposed mainly by jurist Ives Gandra so that the Federal Constitution would be fulfilled” and that “it would not be any coup d’état and yes the application of the law”.

In another audio, he tells the captain expelled from the Army who was in contact with Cid that it was necessary to “continue putting pressure on Freire Gomes so that he does what he has to do.”

When questioned, he denied to the PF that the idea was to pressure the then head of the Army into carrying out a coup.

“The intention was to convince Army General Freire Gomes of the constitutionality of the arguments presented by jurist Ives Gandra Martins,” he told the corporation.