Ibaneis resumes command of the Federal District government
The coup attacks on January 8 in BrasÃlia were the result of a “general blackout”, assessed the governor of the Federal District (DF), Ibaneis Rocha (MDB), who returned to office this Thursday (16). He had been removed from office the day after the protests.
“The blackout wasn’t free. Something happened to make it happen,” he added after being asked about it. “It was a set (of errors). We had failures by the Military Police of the DF, by the army battalion, we had several failures together. I am sure that the investigation will find out”, he said.
Ibaneis also stated that he was advised not to nominate former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres (União Brasil) to the Public Security Secretariat of the DF, but pointed out that at the time, he “was a person of my complete confidence and I trusted that things would pass in the greatest tranquillity”.
Torres was Secretary of Public Security during part of Ibaneis’s first term at the head of the DF and left office to become Minister of Justice for former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL). He is currently in jail as part of the investigation into what happened on January 8th.
A search and seizure operation at his home found the draft of a decree that dealt a blow in the 2022 election, in which Bolsonaro lost to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), as revealed by Folha de S.Paulo.
Questioned about the discovery of the document, Ibaneis said he couldn’t explain it and that it was up to Torres. “That document reveals that in someone’s head, I don’t know whose, there was the intention of striking a coup in Brazil.”
The governor also said that Torres “enjoys, enjoyed” his trust. “I was intimate with him, I can say that categorically, and while he was Minister of Justice he always helped me. I understood that he would be a good person for the government of the DF”.
He avoided blaming the former assistant for what happened in early January in the Federal District. “What happened was unpredictable. In my view, it wasn’t Anderson’s fault,” he assessed. A little later, he said that the security plan put together for the occasion was “extremely well put together”.
The governor also defended his performance on the day. “At that time, I was in contact with the acting Secretary of Security (Deputy Fernando de Souza Oliveira). The message he gave me was that things were calm and I conveyed these messages”, he said.
“You get reports from your Secretary of Security saying everything is fine, what was I going to do?” he continued. He also pointed out that “twice we tried to remove the demonstrators from the door of the Army headquarters and both times we were stopped by the Army Command. We knew that it was a powder keg”.
The MDB politician was removed from office by the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Alexandre de Moraes.
Ibaneis arrived at the event in which he was reinstated in office in the company of the Secretary of Public Security, Sandro Avelar, appointed by Vice Governor Celina Leão (PP) after the end of federal intervention in public security in the DF while she was governor. In the speech, Ibaneis said he had no regrets or rancor for being removed and that Moraes did the right thing in making the decision.
“Removal was necessary, we are going through very difficult times. The invasion of buildings was significant for the history of this country. I have all the respect for all the authorities, for everything that happened.”
