Spanish
Rio de Janeiro.- Opposition parliamentarians in Brazil occupied the chairs of the boards of directors of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies this Tuesday and announced that they will boycott the work of Congress until its leaders put to a vote a bill to grant amnesty to those accused of coupism.
The boycott is led by members of the Liberal Party (PL), the formation led by former President Jair Bolsonaro, in response to the Supreme Court's decision the previous day to order the house arrest of the far-right leader while the trial in which he is accused of coupism concludes.You may be interested in: Bolsonaro rules out the possibility of seeking political asylum in the United States
"We decided to occupy the boards of both chambers and will not abandon them until the presidents of the Chamber and the Senate agree to receive us to seek to resolve this problem," said the PL spokesman in the lower house, deputy Sóstenes Cavalcante. Legislators, who launched the boycott precisely on the day Congress resumed its work after the July recess, covered their mouths with tape in a reference to the censorship that, they claim, the Supreme Court imposed on Bolsonaro, who is prohibited from transmitting messages on his social media or on those of third parties. The decision by the highest court to confine him to house arrest came after the publication of a message from Bolsonaro on the social media of his allies and the reading of it during the marches that his supporters held on Sunday in several cities. Magistrate Alexandre de Moraes, the instructor in the case against Bolsonaro for coup-mongering, stated that the publication of the message constituted a violation of the restrictive measures imposed on the president last month, which prevent him from expressing himself on social media. Opposition lawmakers are conditioning the normalization of work in Congress on the vote of a series of projects they called the "peace package", among which is an amnesty that benefits all those convicted or prosecuted for coup-plotting. The amnesty would be intended for the hundreds of Bolsonaristas already convicted for having participated in the violent assaults on the headquarters of the three powers on January 8, 2023, when the far-right attempted to force a coup, but it would extend to other coup-accused individuals like Bolsonaro. The former president is on trial in the Supreme Court in a process in which he is accused of having led a plot to try to prevent the inauguration of the progressive Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated him in the 2022 elections. The "peace package" also includes a project to remove Alexandre de Moraes as a magistrate of the Court and a constitutional amendment to end privileged jurisdiction, so that legislators and former presidents are tried by first instance courts and not directly in the Supreme Court, as is currently the case. Bolsonaro's parliamentarians accuse the presidents of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre, and of the Chamber, Hugo Motta, of refusing to put these projects to a vote so as not to antagonize Lula's Government. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the former president and one of those responsible for the campaign to obstruct the work of Congress, stated that the measures they want Parliament to vote on seek to "pacify" Brazil.Although Lula preferred to remain silent about Bolsonaro's house arrest and stated that he does not want to talk "about what happened with the Brazilian citizen who tried to stage a coup", left-wing parliamentarians rejected the position of the Bolsonaristas and stated that it will harm Brazil.
"That is retaliation against the people because it prevents the voting of projects of interest to the population, such as the one that exempts from income tax those who earn up to 5,000 reais (about $908 or 784 euros)," said deputy Edinho Silva, president of the Workers' Party (PT), the formation led by Lula.
