Yesterday it was raining a… a… a… If you thought I was going to write “by pitchers”, you were wrong. Nor will I write that it was pouring rain. Because I’d rather lose a more eager reader than give in to one of those commonplaces so much to the taste of pamphleteers. Furthermore, whether it rained or not does not matter. What matters is that yesterday, absently, I caught myself thinking about the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
When I could have imagined that, on any day of 2022, I would be wasting the rainy afternoon, proper to the highest melancholy, thinking about the Superior Electoral Court, isn’t it? The fact is that I thought and the conclusion I came to is not the most surprising: the TSE is an aberration and it is high time we considered ending this octopus wrapped in barnacles that consumes R$10 billions of our taxes per year.
“So you’re proposing to extinguish a fundamental institution of our democracy, you fascist?!”, someone must be asking. There’s always someone to ask these kinds of questions. And in that tone. I don’t know where they come from. The answer is: yes, I am suggesting that this very expensive jabuticaba ceases to exist. More than that, from the following paragraph I will be suggesting that the TSE is an essentially undemocratic institution.
Because it intends to regulate something that is unregulated: political relations. Who you may or may not associate with to defend an idea and form a political party, for example. Who may or may not represent you in Parliament. Who can or cannot say that the Brazilian electoral system is susceptible to failure (in this case, no one). And even, as we have seen recently, the layout of the campaign material. In other words, it is an argument that serves to protect political choices that, in a truly democratic country, should be… free.
Here I will cite the most recent example of the essentially undemocratic mission of the Electoral Justice: the injunction that prohibited President Jair Bolsonaro from displaying images of the 7th of September in his electoral propaganda. It is based on the “abuse of political power”. Once again, I invite the reader to enjoy the rain, the cold and this warm coffee that he has in his hands to reflect on. Read “political power abuse” very slowly. Does it make any sense to allege abuse of political power in an election? Which, in essence, is a dispute to see who has more political power?
Not to mention the ineffectiveness of the decision that, if it serves any purpose, only serves to open up the shameless (even pornographic) relationships! ) between the Electoral Justice and the candidate and ex-convict (I can’t get enough) Lula. After all, everyone has seen, sees and will continue to see the images of the 7th of September. It is only in the event of a solar flare that, who knows!, the decision of Electoral Inspector Benedito Gonçalves would have any chance of having an effect.
This gentleman, by the way, was seen full of intimacy with Lula. There was even that pat of love that we give our friends, you know? When they get that figurine that was missing from the Copa album, for example. Or when they make a decision that, despite being innocuous, is favorable to us. Which, symbolically, denotes a dangerous and unrepublican loyalty. Irony of ironies: how is it possible that this friendship, this affection, this affection is not configured… abuse of political power?
Lula’s affectionate pats on the His Honor’s plump face are a demonstration of the power of the reverse Robin Hood that the ex-convict has become. Only he can guarantee that the privileges of the elite of which the TSE minister is a part will be reaffirmed and maintained. And I’m not just talking about the very high salary, the official car, the aid-this or the aid-that. I’m talking about the privilege of ruling, of submitting the “inferiors”, of shaping the world. And, in the case of some ministers, even to control what and how one thinks. (We are 0 days away from mentioning the name of Minister Alexandre de Moraes in a column. Damn! Our record is 0 days).
I have been insisting on this for some time: everything is in the open. shamelessly. In other times, an Electoral Justice magistrate would never allow himself to be registered in such intimacy with a politician. It was a matter of self-respect and also of respect for the institution. In the past, the idea of being a Marie Antoinette recommending brioches to the hungry people or of being a noble waltzing on Fiscal Island scared the elite. No more. The elite that governs us has lost track of its own size. And the fragility itself.
