To the chagrin of the supporters of Jair Bolsonaro who recently stormed the official government buildings in Brasilia or of those who had been camping in front of the barracks for two months demanding a military intervention to remove ‘Lula’ from power, it was the Army –which they respect– who ended up evicting them. How did the failed coup by supporters of the extreme right-wing ex-president reconfigure the complex relationship between ‘Lula’ and the Army? Analysis.
This is one of the paradoxes of the incredible coup attempt by the ‘desperados’ of Bolsonarismo: perched on the roof of Congress, on Sunday, January 8, they displayed banners demanding a military intervention to remove the “bandit” ‘Lula’ from presidential palace. But a few hours later, the same soldiers they revere arrested them and handed them over to the police.
To their great surprise, those who are sometimes described as ‘good people’ were interrogated, searched at a gym and treated like criminals. The Army did not heed his call and chose to remain faithful to President ‘Lula’. The latter, who described the attackers as fascists and terrorists, called for them to be severely punished.
After his tight victory (50.9%) in the second round of the presidential election on October 30, 2022, ‘Lula’ tried to ignore Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters, who denounced alleged electoral fraud, blocking roads and demanding that its champion ordered an intervention by the Army to annul the result of the election.
During the two months of transition before his inauguration, on January 1, ‘Lula’ multiplied the calls for national harmony and reconciliation. “On January 1st ‘Lula’ said that everyone had the right to defend their opinions and to organize themselves through all the means allowed by the rule of law. It was a message for the Bolsonaristas, to tell them that they had the right to demonstrate against them if they respected the Constitution. A week later, the situation is different,” says Christophe Ventura, director of research at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS, for its acronym in French) and author of the book ‘Geopolitique de l’Amérique latine’.
Did ‘Lula’s’ calm strategy fail?
After his victory, the newly elected president who was returning to office (2003-2010) knew that reconciling a deeply fractured Brazil would not be an easy task. But he certainly did not expect that just a week after his inauguration he would have to deal with one of the most complex problems of his tenure: reconciling with a military institution that participated extensively in the exercise of power under Jair Bolsonaro, both at the head of ministries as well as in key positions within public administrations and companies.
To fulfill the mission, ‘Lula’ chose José Mucio as defense minister, a veteran of Brazilian politics from the moderate right. The man is considered a good negotiator who never offends anyone. His appointment was largely interpreted as a gesture by ‘Lula’ to reassure the military.
“‘Lula’ chose Mucio precisely as Defense Minister so as not to have to deal with the Army. He thought he was the right person to keep his relations with the military under the radar. He wanted to deal with the economy and, of course, not with civil-military relations during the first months of his mandate. His calm strategy was weakened because it seems that José Mucio facilitated and did very little to prevent the Bolsonaristas’ attack,” explains Oliver Stuenkel, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas de Sao Foundation. Paul.
Since Sunday afternoon, ‘Lula’ asked that the ‘fascist vandals’ who looted and destroyed the presidential palace, the Congress and the Supreme Court under the watchful eye of police forces that were less than accommodating, pay for their crimes, ‘until the latest’. A combative speech, light years away from the calm and reconciliation speeches that he had been delivering for the past two months. The former metal worker also demanded that the military stop tolerating the Bolsonaro encampments in front of the barracks, the starting point of their unbridled and destructive passage through the Plaza de los Tres-Poderes in Brasilia.
“These events place ‘Lula’ in a new dynamic. We are no longer in a phase of ambiguity. We are entering a phase of clarification. ‘Lula’ is asserting his authority over the military. Indeed, as of Monday the Army began to dismantle groups of people who had been demanding a coup for months,” says Gaspard Estrada, director of Sciences-Po’s Political Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean. “If it had been a group of leftist militants, of course they would not have been able to camp in front of the military installations for two months,” adds Fabio de Sa e Silva, a professor at the University of Oklahoma and a former Brazilian Justice Ministry official.
Punish the Bolsonaristas and warn the Army
However, twenty-four hours after the assault on the headquarters of the institutions, ‘Lula’ resumed his strategy of national unity and organized a march that brought together the judges of the Supreme Court, the presidents of the two chambers and the governors of all sectors politicians.
“Lula’s response was to mobilize all the representatives of civil power. This is how he shows the military that his power is no longer limited to the 50.9% who voted for him, but extends to all the institutions of the Brazilian republican system that are united in the face of the threat of riots”, considers Christophe Ventura .
“He will maintain his conciliation speech, as he did before the governors on Monday afternoon, but with one clarification: from now on, coup leaders who ask for military intervention will be treated as potential criminals. I think that there is a change in the progress of the plan regarding its relationship with the armed forces, since it affirms the authority of the civil over the military”, says Gaspard Estrada.
After the commotion caused by the invasion of the seats of Brazilian democratic power by the Bolsonaro ultras, the Army walled itself off in silence and seemed to once again become the ‘Great Muda’ that it should never have ceased to be. “The generals had become a kind of political commentators and now they are being asked to stop expressing themselves. The Army is expected to return to its barracks. That is why it was not invited to the meeting with all the constituent bodies and the governors,” he explains. Gaspard Estrada.
Indeed, since 2018 the ‘Great Muda’ became very talkative in Brazil, as when General Eduardo Villas Bôas, then Commander-in-Chief of the Army, published a threatening tweet addressed to the Supreme Court if it did not declare ‘Lula ‘ Ineligible for the Presidency.
The role of the Army in the young Brazilian democracy
This week ‘Lula’ finally kept his Defense Minister and the generals he has just appointed to lead the Army, “but he made it clear to them that the situation is unsatisfactory. He demands quick results with the arrest of those who have participated in the looting of the institutions in Brasilia. He demands more rigor and discipline in the future to rule out any undemocratic act, ”says Gaspard Estrada.
For now, a purge of the armed forces to reduce the influence of Bolsonarism is not on the agenda. Throughout the week, the Brazilian president showed that he would remain faithful to his political method, by maintaining the status quo between civil and military power.
“It will be very difficult for ‘Lula’ to ‘de-pocket’ the Army because the military wants to keep its spaces of power. Their strategy of calm reinforces the power of the military and its status in society. But that is the scheme that ‘Lula’ prefers: to manage to reconcile two different actors, even very antagonistic ones. That is what he tries to do to be able to govern ”, explains Christophe Ventura.
A challenge that seems more delicate than ever at a time when, according to a survey, almost one in five Brazilians approve of the invasion and looting of official government buildings that took place in Brasilia.
Long history of conflicts between ‘Lula’ and the Army
For the Brazilian political scientist Eduardo Heleno, quoted by the Spanish newspaper ‘El País’, the objective of keeping the military institution under control is not enough. The moderation of ‘Lula’ and his way of reconciling the irreconcilable could be counterproductive. “If the new government of ‘Lula’ does not react so that the armed forces are effectively controlled by the civil power and the legalistic officers, the barracks will be used to maintain a climate of political harassment,” explains Heleno.
Indeed, since the dismissal of Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and even more so with the election in 2018 of Jair Bolsonaro –a former officer nostalgic for the dictatorship (1964-1985)– the Brazilian Army has returned to the forefront by coming out of the discretion it was trying to keep.
In 1985, the military did not have to render accounts before the Justice. They returned to the barracks and continued to impose their influence, particularly through the military police, the largest security force in Brazil, which maintains order on a daily basis under the authority of state governors. The price of democracy was impunity and oblivion.
For Oliver Stuenkuel, the new rise of the military that occurred with the rise of Bolsonaro is the product of the complex relationship that exists between the civil and the military: “Brazil never had an honest look at the period of the military dictatorship because it did not force the Army to apologize publicly or to tell the truth about what happened during that time. We suffered an excessively smooth transition (from dictatorship to democracy, NDLR) in which there has not been a necessary will to look back, as in Argentina.”
After the invasion of the institutions of power, the Brazilian president wants to avoid a conflict with the military institution at all costs. But his personal story, like that of Brazil’s return to democracy almost 40 years ago, will make his task particularly difficult: during the 1970s and 1980s, he was imprisoned and persecuted for his union activities, nothing more and nothing less than… military junta. Not to mention that in 2018 the Army high command publicly spoke out in favor of his imprisonment.
*Article adapted from its original in French
