Lula vetoes the Sentencing Bill, but 'Congress, enemy of the people,' threatens to overturn the veto.

In a ceremony at the Planalto Palace, this Thursday (8), President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vetoed in full the bill that provided for the reduction of sentences for those convicted of participating in the coup attempt of January 8, 2023.

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Hugo Motta (REP-PB), and the President of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), boycotted the event in protest. The Supreme Court justices did not attend.

In his speech, President Lula stated: “January 8th is marked in history as the day of the victory of democracy. A victory over those who tried to seize power by force, disregarding the popular will expressed at the ballot box. Those who always defended dictatorship, torture, and the extermination of adversaries, and intended to subject Brazil to a regime of exception. Those who planned the assassinations of the President and Vice-President of the Republic and the then-President of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE). Those who demand ever more privileges for the super-rich and fewer rights for those who build Brazil's wealth with the sweat of their labor.” Lula was accompanied by chants from the audience of “no amnesty” and “jail for Bolsonaro and the coup plotters.”

“No amnesty”

The blocked text, approved by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate at the end of last year, created mechanisms to reduce the punishments applied to former president Jair Bolsonaro, the generals, and the vandals of January 8, 2023.

To that end, the aforementioned Sentencing Bill provided for a more lenient progression regime for those convicted of crimes against the Democratic Rule of Law, with a reduction of up to two-thirds of the sentence for common vandals, and stipulated that the crime of attempted coup d'état should not be combined with the crime of abolishing the Rule of Law.

The proposal scaled the rules for progression to the semi-open regime, for convicts who could request a change of regime after serving 16% of their sentence in a closed regime – currently, a minimum of 25% of the sentence is required.

Pressure from the streets is decisive.

Leaders from the far-right and centrist blocs promise to overturn President Lula's veto. This requires at least 257 votes in the Chamber of Deputies and 41 in the Senate. The bill was approved with 291 and 48 votes, respectively.

Senator Esperidião Amin (PP-SC), immediately after the presidential veto, filed a bill granting amnesty to those convicted and prosecuted in the attempted coup of January 8th.

The debate over punishing the coup plotters continues on the agenda of the National Congress, and pressure from the streets is crucial to defeating, once again, the plots of the far-right Bolsonaro supporters and their right-wing allies.

In several capitals and cities across the country, public acts and demonstrations took place demanding punishment for coup plotters and no amnesty or leniency. Some speakers also denounced the bombing of Venezuela and called for Maduro's freedom.

This was the case with the most applauded speaker at the event in São Paulo, former PT president José Genoíno, who correctly criticized the "conciliation in sentencing guidelines." One thing is certain: defending the convictions of the coup plotters against the amnesty disguised as "sentencing guidelines" will require a great deal of determination from political and union leaders to guarantee the necessary popular mobilization against the right-wing attempts to reverse President Lula's decision.