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00:00Let's bring in Anthony Pereira, Director of the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Centre
00:05at Florida International University. Thank you so much Anthony for being on the programme
00:10with us this evening. We heard some of the details in that report.
00:14When it comes to this case, just how strong is the case against Jair Bolsonaro?
00:21Well I think this is going to wake a lot of people up, the fact that this report is so detailed
00:26and so thorough. I mean if the allegations are true, it indicates a level of planning,
00:32it's a level of intentionality way beyond what we've heard about before. I mean some of this
00:36has been out in the public domain before. I think it's unlikely that prosecutors wouldn't
00:44make some charges based on this report, whether it'll be all 37 people named in the report or
00:50just some of them, whether it'll be for all of the alleged incidents or just some of them,
00:56is up to the prosecutors. But I think it's a quite a serious and thorough report and so
01:01it's going to raise a lot of questions in Brazilian politics that are going to be pursued
01:07I think over the next few months. And is time on Bolsonaro's side here?
01:11When is the Attorney General expected to respond to this particular case?
01:17Well the commentaries I've read don't expect anything to happen until 2025.
01:21You know Brazilian politics are kind of dormant between in December, January, until after
01:26Carnival. But something is likely to happen in 2025. I think one question that has been raised
01:33is whether the Trump administration, which will be inaugurated on the 20th of January,
01:38whether the Trump administration will weigh in in any way on this. I think Bolsonaro is hoping
01:44that these charges will go away as they did for Donald Trump with the Jack Smith investigation.
01:49But I think the circumstances in Brazil are very different. And another question I would raise is
01:54what does this mean for the opposition? Are center-right politicians going to distance
01:59themselves from Bolsonaro because of these allegations and what could become a criminal
02:05prosecution? Or are they going to unite around Bolsonaro and echo his claim that these are
02:13unsustainable charges, that nothing like this ever happened, and that he's just going to continue
02:19to deny what's in the report?
02:22Well on that first point, some say Bolsonaro is expected to play his Trump card, so to speak. But
02:29what kind of support might he actually receive from Donald Trump when he comes back to office
02:34in January? What kind of an impact could that have?
02:37I mean, there may be some sort of U.S. pressure. I think the question of pressure, though,
02:42it could generate a backlash in which people in Brazil say, look, this is a sovereign decision,
02:48this is a legal case that's involving domestic courts in Brazil, and it doesn't really enter
02:55the realm of foreign relations and foreign policy. And so there might be resistance to any pressure
03:01on the U.S. side. We saw with Elon Musk's conflict with the Brazilian Supreme Court,
03:06there was an attempt in the U.S. Congress to pressure Brazil on that, and it didn't really
03:11get very far. In the end, Elon Musk ended up agreeing to pay the fines that were imposed by
03:16the Supreme Court. And I think it's going to be limited what can be done, but there may be some
03:23mobilization of public opinion, at the very least, in the U.S. on the side of Bolsonaro
03:29within the Republican Party and possibly in Congress.
03:32And when you talk about that kind of pressure, are we talking as well about
03:36sanctions, other punitive financial measures that could be imposed by the U.S. to ramp up
03:42that pressure on Brazilian authorities? Possibly. What was proposed in the case
03:47of Musk was denying visas to members of the Brazilian Supreme Court that were part of the
03:52decision to fine X. So there could be something like that. I mean, I think another question that's
03:59raised is, you know, how secure is Brazilian democracy? Because the report, it has some
04:05comical aspects to it. I'm not saying that an attempted coup is comedic by any means,
04:11but I think some Brazilians are thinking, you know, how secure is our democracy if a few people
04:16around the president could contemplate not having a peaceful transition of power and
04:22get this far in planning it, if the allegations are true? But yeah, on the U.S. side, I think
04:28it's likely, you know, if there is anything, it's likely to come from Congress, and it's
04:32likely to be similar to the measures that we saw that were directed at the Supreme Court
04:39in defense of Elon Musk in the recent conflict between X and the Supreme Court.
04:45And supporters of Bolsonaro, he himself as well, claims that he's been persecuted. He's
04:50described all of this as a witch hunt. What kind of resonance is all of this having with the general
04:57public, though? I think there was a pretty strong condemnation at the time of the attacks on the
05:03Planalto on January 8th, 2023, both in Brazilian public opinion and the Brazilian political
05:09establishment, that that attempt went too far. And there's evidence in this report that that
05:16attack on the Planalto was linked to this attempted coup. And so I think it'll be,
05:23there are some politicians on the right who are already distancing themselves somewhat from
05:28Bolsonaro and saying that, you know, this goes too far. I think we shouldn't forget as well
05:34that there is an alleged member of the group who's plea bargained, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cidi,
05:41and he's cooperating with the federal police. So these are not just allegations that come from the
05:47police investigation and sort of monitoring of social media and sort of secondhand reports.
05:55There is somebody who's testifying, who's plea bargained, and testifying as having participated
05:59in some of these activities, who is on the side of whoever will prosecute the case.
06:06So the evidence is pretty strong. And this is just one case. There are multiple investigations
06:12that have been launched in Brazil over suspected plots against Lula and his administration.
06:19How serious do you think all of this is for Bolsonaro? Could he ultimately one day be put
06:25behind bars, do you think? It could happen, I think. I mean, the decision to imprison a former
06:31president is pretty serious. Bolsonaro is 69. So I think if this were to happen after he's 70,
06:38there may be a, even if we're convicted, there might be an argument that he shouldn't go to
06:43prison given his age. So, you know, and I think there is a, there could be an appearance of
06:49making a martyr out of someone like Bolsonaro. But I think, you know, Bolsonaro has on his
06:58on his side the fact that the coup was not successful. So the prosecutors would have to
07:03prove that something was attempted that wasn't actually realized. And so he has the advantage
07:08of saying, well, look, nothing ever happened in the end. But I think people reading the report
07:14might change their mind about the effectiveness of that argument, because there's a lot of
07:18documentation there, including, for example, of how members of the group allegedly monitored the
07:24whereabouts of Alexandre do Moraes, the Supreme Court justice. They knew where he was in the middle
07:30of December. They knew that he had traveled to Sao Paulo. They knew that he was in his residence.
07:33They knew when he was going back to Brasilia. So there was a lot of use of government apparatus to,
07:41allegedly, to engage in this activity and to plan this coup. And so I think if people
07:49read the report, they might be somewhat less convinced by this idea, well, since nothing
07:55happened, nothing could have been behind. There was nothing, there's no evidence, you know, there's
08:00nothing there. There's no fire where you see that smoke. But I think, as I say,
08:07the report is very sort of methodical, very detailed, and very loaded with evidence.
08:14Anthony, how popular is Bolsonaro currently in Brazil? And is there an argument that all of this
08:20might actually boost his political support? It could. Some people say that, you know, Alexandre
08:26do Moraes, the Supreme Court justice, is sort of public enemy number one for the base of the
08:31Bolsonaristas. They will see this as more judicial overreach, more evidence that Alexandre do Moraes
08:38is sort of waging a campaign against Bolsonaro. He's weaponizing the justice system, as was also
08:46alleged here in the United States, with some of the cases against Donald Trump. So it could just
08:52harden and polarize public opinion. But as I said, if you look at the public opinion and the political
08:58reaction to the January 8th, 2023 attacks on the Planalto, that was quite different from the United
09:04States, where a majority of Republicans didn't condemn what happened at the Capitol. In Brazil,
09:11there was a much wider, broader condemnation of what happened on January 8th, 2023. And to the
09:18extent that the prosecutors will draw a link between what happened there, the depredation of
09:24those buildings, the destruction, the vandalism, and what appeared to be happening, what's alleged
09:28to have been happening in December of 2022, with this attempt to prevent the peaceful transition
09:35of power, I think a majority in Brazil may well end up condemning both the January 8th,
09:432023 acts and this alleged plot to prevent a peaceful inauguration of the new president.
09:52Antony, thank you so much for all of that. We'll have to leave it there for now. That's Antony
09:55Pereira joining us there from the Florida International University. That is it from us
10:00for now. Do stay with us though. Up next, it's Ion Africa.