Jair Bolzanaro insists on pulling the armed forces into a counter-information game in domestic politics for the benefit of his reelection bid.
Bolsanaro does not play alone. Along with them are three retired generals.
Among them are former Chief of Staff and former Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto. Affiliated with the Liberal Party of Valdemar Costa Neto, he is Bolzanaro’s favorite to run for vice president in a re-election bid in October.
Others are Luiz Eduardo Ramos, head of the Presidency’s General Secretariat, and Augusto Heleno, head of the Corporate Security Office.
Since last year, he has turned the Ministry of Defense into a sort of annex to Bolzanaro’s election committee, with Braga Netto holding the helm.
Created to consolidate the Army, Navy and Air Force, the Ministry is a government agency that articulates defense doctrine and a set of military initiatives in the federal budget, which cost the country just R $ 110 billion this year.
However, since the beginning of the Bolzanaro government, Braga Netto, Ramos and Heleno have committed to redirecting defenses in an attempt to protect the role of the “moderator” of the institutional conflicts that the armed forces have lost in the last century and were buried in the 1988 Constitution.
The Quartet has spent the last two years mobilizing government circles (spy agency, Abin, and federal police, among others) to collect information on alleged fraud in electronic ballots, and to legalize Bolsonaro for defaming the electoral process. .
Ramos called the police, led by Heleno Abin and Braga Netto, a “legitimate” spokesperson as classified in the speech, promoted distrust by Bolzanaro – who never presented evidence – about election results by electronic voting.
It is engaged in clear validation initiatives of the armed forces, state agencies, this gear, whether coincidental or not, triggering the erosion of public confidence in the electronic voting system and the integrity of electoral justice, already discernible in the research.
In an environment fueled by allegations by Bolsanaro and congressional allies – on the day that the Chamber rejected Bolsonaro’s proposal to return to the printed vote without evidence, he promoted a march of navy tanks before Congress. And it promoted the mobilization of dozens of experts from cyber warfare units in the Armed Forces, for months, in the process of identifying shortcomings, the dangers of suggesting “actions.”
A collection of arguments and proposals received technical response from the Supreme Court. However, it left the defense ministry’s impression in the central committee of Bolsanaro’s reelection based on Palacio do Planalto.
This dynamic can be considered the main legacy of Braga Netto’s successor, former military commander Paulo Sergio Nogueira de Oliveira.
As an active general, he served 40 days in the post of defense minister. Yesterday, he received a copy of a statement addressed to members of the Electoral Transparency Commission by Judge Luiz Edson Fachin, President of the TSE, presenting the Defense on the latest “observations and recommendations”.
There were seven, with eight dozen already answered. They are rejected with 36 pages of technical and legal arguments.
In presenting the assertions, Judge Fachin commented on the court’s willingness to “ensure peace and security” in the elections.
To this end, he points out that the TSE “promotes quality information and, above all, respect for the results of elections.”
It is hard to imagine Bolzano leaving the invasion of the armed forces for a counter-information game in domestic politics, on the assumption of profit for his candidacy.
However, in the midst of the election season there are indications of concern in military commands with the involvement of the Army, Navy and Air Force in the creation of a corporate crisis.
The long journey will be announced until the inauguration of who will be elected president in January. In the aftermath, fierce battles are expected in Congress to legitimize the new government, no matter who wins the October elections.