O Estado de S.Paulo - 02/02
Senator Renan Calheiros knows the story. There was a political boss from the interior of Alagoas, in his native Murici ("Colonel Elísio"), violent in his actions and mild in his words, who, after ordering the killing of his enemies, would communicate the accomplished fact to his subordinates in this way: "The tragedy has occurred."
Decorum was murdered yesterday at 14:30 PM, resulting in a tragedy in the Senate, which will now have to coexist with a morally wounded president and, out of a sense of duty, show him reverence.
The act of the election itself was relatively simple. It was enough for the candidate to remain hidden, for the PMDB to give him shelter, for the Vice-President of the Republic to act as his spokesperson, for the government to collude, and for the majority of the excellencies (56 out of 81) to be on his side.
The complicated part comes now. Barring premature decay that interrupts the process, there will be two years during which there is not the slightest chance of things improving there, although it seems impossible for things to get worse.
The Senate will not have a president who is fully in charge. He will be constantly held accountable for the accusations involving him, which could soon turn him into a defendant in the Supreme Federal Court.
Calheiros probably even intends to do a "beautiful job," as his party colleague Michel Temer said.
The candidate, who had been silent until that moment, began his speech by extolling the value of "debate." He spoke of "pillars," "efficient management," "transparency," "modernity," "databases," and so on, in bureaucratic rhetoric, without even touching upon the real problem: the facts that disqualify the Congress he now presides over.
He resorted to a veneer defending "freedom of expression" and ethics "as an obligation"; he said that Congress "is a partner in the general crisis" of parliaments, but he sidestepped the reasons for the specific damage. Nothing that creates difficulties for him, because if the Senate really wanted to get out of the mess it would have made a more decent choice.
