Brazilian socialist ex-president and current presidential frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned on Tuesday the “condescending” actions of the nation’s Federal Police (PF) against former Brazilian lawmaker Roberto Jefferson — who this weekend attacked police with a grenade.
Jefferson attacked the police with live fire and a grenade on Sunday after the top court in the country, the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), ordered his arrest for insulting a court justice in a Youtube video.
Lula’s apparent defense of Jefferson’s outrage against the police follow attempts to tie the center-left former congressman to his presidential rival, incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro. The Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), the nation’s federal election authority, has censored smears linking Bolsonaro to Jefferson.
Lula notably condemned the police while approving of his arrest over insulting STF Minister (the formal title for justices on the court) Cármen Lúcia.
“What happened to Mr. Roberto Jefferson, he should have been arrested,” Lula said during a presidential campaign Q&A event on social media Tuesday. “The Federal Police, in my opinion, did not act correctly. They were condescending to him.”
Roberto Jefferson is a controversial former lawmaker that served in Brazil’s Congress from 1983 until he was expelled from Congress in 2005 amid a corruption scandal that involved the nation’s state-owned national postal service.
Jefferson, who was already under house arrest since 2021 under charges of spreading “fake news” — which is not a crime in Brazil — published a video on social media through his daughter in which he insulted Lúcia for having voted to limit news coverage detrimental to Lula da Silva’s presidential campaign, referring to her as “Cármen Lucifer” and a “prostitute,” among other offenses.
Alexandre de Moraes, head of both the STF and TSE, swiftly condemned Jefferson’s video, which he deemed to have been a violation of Jefferson’s house arrest terms. Jefferson had previously been banned from expressing himself on social media at all.
Brazil’s Federal Police (PF) agents arrived at Jefferson’s house hours after de Moraes’ condemnation of the video with the intention to arrest the former lawmaker.
Jefferson initially resisted the arrest, opening fire on the policemen with a rifle and throwing a grenade at the police, injuring two in the process. He eventually surrendered himself to the authorities.
While Lula condemned the actions of the police against Jefferson, the socialist presidential candidate went on to associate Jefferson’s actions negatively with president Jair Bolsonaro.
“It’s not Roberto Jefferson, it’s what Bolsonaro talks about every day about institutions. What he says about personal offense to ministers, ministers, the court of justice, the Superior Electoral Court. He has a habit of offending with words that I don’t even like to say,” Lula da Silva said.
During the event, Lula da Silva said that if elected, he would pass a decree to impede the flexibization of gun ownership carried out by Bolsonaro — which is currently suspended as a result of three injunctions granted by STF Minister Edson Fachin in September. Fachin was also among the members of court that voted to absolve Lula da Silva, allowing the socialist former president to run for office again.
“A citizen who insisted on posing with a gun, a rifle, a revolver. In other words, an apology for guns doesn’t get anyone anywhere. Guns don’t educate, guns kill,” Lula said.
De Moraes, who has waged a fierce anti-”fake news” censorship campaign throughout Brazil’s presidential election that has generally favored socialist candidate Lula da Silva, was among the nation’s STF ministers who voted in 2021 to overturn Lula da Silva’s conviction after the former president had been sentenced to 25 years in prison for corruption charges as part of a larger corruption crackdown known as Operacion Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash), which allowed Lula da Silva to run for president again.
Lula appointed Minister Cármen Lúcia, the target of the insults in Jefferson’s video, to the Brazilian top court during his presidency. After being arrested this week, Jefferson doubled down on his insults against Lúcia during his custody hearing.
“I made a harsher comment against Minister Cármen Lúcia ‘s scandalous vote. I want to apologize to the prostitutes for the bad comparison, because her role was much worse, because she did much worse, for ideological, political purposes. Others do it out of necessity,” Jefferson said.
Following the incident, leftists and allies of Lula da Silva rapidly attempted to pin the controversial former lawmaker to Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro responded by distancing himself from Jefferson and condemning the former lawmaker for both the video published and his actions against the police.
Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will face off in the October 30 runoff election that will determine who will be the nation’s next president. The latest polls show a technical tie between both candidates after Bolsonaro narrowed the gap between him and Lula da Silva.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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