Janaina ends her term in the sights of left and right – 03/11/2023 – Politics

Janaina Paschoal is leaving the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo, left and right.

The end of her term as a state deputy is also the end of a cycle that goes from the fall of Dilma Rousseff to the rise and defeat of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), with the —to her painful— return of the PT to power, with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

Author, along with Hélio Bicudo and Miguel Reale Júnior, of the ex-president’s removal request, the USP lawyer and law professor arrived at the Assembly in 2019 with an impressive 2 million votes, the largest vote by a parliamentarian in the history of the country, including federal ones.

Rejected by Dilma’s supporters, Janaina was soon also rejected by Bolsonarists, who were unhappy with her specific criticism of the then president. Irreducible about the decision to run for the Senate in 2022, she was far from the vacancy, with just over 447,000 votes.

She claims that Bolsonaro and allies did everything to disrupt her candidacy, with emissaries trying to convince her to give up in favor of former astronaut Marcos Pontes (PL), who was finally elected. “If he had run for re-election or [deputada] federal, I would have made it, but I don’t regret it.”

Janaina considers that displeasing different sides is proof that, as a parliamentarian, she preserved the spirit of independence, without corrupting her ideas or blindly following primers. “I don’t obey anyone,” she says, who hates being called a bolsonarista. “I’ve always done counterpoints.”

A staunch anti-PT supporter and conservative on issues such as abortion and drugs, the 48-year-old from São Paulo has taken a liking to politics and does not rule out running again. She promptly rejects the idea of ​​running for mayor of São Paulo, but that doesn’t mean she closes herself off to possibilities, like a councilwoman’s seat.

Nor is it decided whether to remain affiliated with the PRTB, after having passed through the PSL, a party that also sheltered Bolsonaro. The teacher declares herself to be a democrat averse to mandatory party affiliation for those who want to run and defends separate candidacies.

Since the day when the ballot boxes consecrated the end of the cycle, Janaina’s thoughts have turned to returning to the classrooms at Faculdade do Largo de São Francisco, where she has been teaching since 2003 and has seen herself, for some time now, as an isolated voice in a environment full of progressives.

His reintroduction to work, however, turned into a crisis.

At the end of January, she was surprised to learn that subjects she taught before becoming a deputy were not reserved for her at the end of her unpaid leave. The university says she followed normal procedures and that she will resume her post.

The process was also crossed by a student uprising. The XI de Agosto Academic Center released a manifesto reporting “disruption” with the return of the professor, called the “main legal guarantor of the extreme right”. He said she made “an indecent contribution to the country” by impeaching her.

Rebutted by another part of the students and professors, who see intolerance and violation of the freedom of teaching, the demonstration also asked that the university order the parliamentarian to present her vaccination card against Covid-19, since she is contrary to mandatory immunization .

Then there was a coincidence: a law authored by the deputy herself and fellow Bolsonarists, recently sanctioned by Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), prohibits charging the voucher. The students claimed that, even so, the college required the document. Janaina has already said that she took a dose of Pfizer, but after “a very strong allergic reaction”, she was instructed not to receive the others.

The return to teaching life, his only certainty after leaving the Assembly, should be gradual, starting with the replacement of teachers on leave. “I never talked about politics in the classroom, unlike people on the left. Nor about elections, parties, ideology, nothing.”

In addition to the drop in the obligation to display the vaccination card, Janaina mentions her law as a highlight of the mandate, which gives pregnant women the right to opt for a cesarean section in the SUS. For her initiative, she won labels from opponents such as the enemy of normal childbirth and the spokesperson for the medical class lobby.

“The deputy contributed a lot to the São Paulo Parliament”, says the president of the Assembly, Carlão Pignatari (PSDB), for whom her background in law helped in the elaboration of laws and in the inspection of the government. Even rivals, behind the scenes, recognize her qualities and praise her attendance in the plenary.

For Carlão, the colleague was “an example” with the habit of studying projects, in addition to “having always been very careful and attentive”.

The more serene Janaina who passed through the Legislative was far from the image made famous by the “snake speech”, an exalted speech against the PT made in 2016 on a platform in front of USP. Her period as a deputy even had one or another outburst of oratory, but nothing comparable to the episode in which, with her hair fluttering as she twirled, she shouted: “The Snake Republic is over!”

There were, yes, unusual moments. In 2019, she took to the podium at the request of then PSL colleague Douglas Garcia to announce the deputy’s homosexuality. In 2020, outraged by Bolsonaro’s stance in the pandemic, she stated that “this gentleman” had to “leave the Presidency of the Republic”. The relationship with the base of the ex-president, already problematic, sank once and for all.

Janaina said she was light, a few weeks ago, while she was gathering the cabinet’s objects to vacate it. A painting of Saint George and the images of saints that adorned the table (Sister Dulce, Sacred Heart of Jesus, Our Lady Untying Knots) would be removed last.

What was learned, according to the deputy, was the frustration that a considerable part of the electorate, in all spectrums, despises the technical performance of parliamentarians. “They ask for a favor, they want projects for the name of the street, homage, day of illness and so on. I was attacked because I didn’t curse the [ex-governador] João Doria!”

For now, he wants to continue participating in the public debate in interviews, events and on social media, as he has no lack of opinions.

“I think the president [Bolsonaro] he cannot be our candidate, otherwise we will lose again”, he says, hoping that by 2026 other right-wing leaders will emerge, such as Tarcísio, governor Romeu Zema (Novo-MG) and federal deputy Marcel van Hattem (Novo-MG). RS), “that’s a good boy”.

Bolsonaro “has already shown that he does not have” the condition to perform the function. “He couldn’t understand that it was necessary to open the fan. He closed [o discurso] in the hard core. Supporting him for 2026 is going to be stupid”, continues her, who says she voted for Simone Tebet (MDB) in the first round and Bolsonaro in the second.

Lula, she assesses, abandoned “the good victory speech”, with a pacifying tone, and took a sectarian course. “He went back to being that Lula da Silva. It seems that he is heading for the same mistakes as Bolsonaro, but, as he has support from many sectors, maybe that sustains him more.”

The biographical text provided to the Assembly defines the deputy as a critic of the “domination exercised by leftism” in Brazil and speaks of “dictatorship that is gradually being installed” — a risk that, for Janaina, did not exist under Bolsonaro. “He blustered, but he didn’t do anything dictatorial.” With her left back, she says her fear resurfaces. “They are much smarter, capable. Much more.”

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X-RAY | Janaina Conceição Paschoal, 48

A lawyer, she is a licensed professor of criminal law at the Faculty of Law of USP, where she completed her graduation and doctorate. She worked at the Public Security Secretariat of São Paulo and the Ministry of Justice before opening her law firm. She became known for being co-author of the impeachment request of Dilma Rousseff (PT), supported the candidacy of Jair Bolsonaro (then in the PSL) in 2018 and was elected by the same party as state deputy in São Paulo for the 2019-2023 legislature.