After downplaying January 8th, Hugo Motta wants to 'change the agenda'.
The Speaker of the House wants to avoid further controversy regarding January 8th, and the vote on the amnesty bill for the coup plotters is expected to be postponed until the second half of the year.
247 - The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), has been seeking to end the controversy generated by his statements about the attacks of January 8, 2023 in Brasília, when protesters invaded and vandalized the headquarters of the Three Branches of Government, and to change the current agenda of the political debate.
In an interview with a radio station in Paraíba last Friday, Motta stated that the events did not constitute an attempted coup. "What happened cannot be tolerated again; it was an attack on the institutions. Now, to say it was a coup... A coup has to have a leader, someone instigating it, it has to have the support of other interested institutions, and that didn't happen," he declared.
The demonstration generated discomfort in political and legal circles, leading the Speaker of the House to seek interlocutors in recent days to clarify his position. According to the journalist's column. Laura JardimAccording to O Globo, people close to Motta say that he does not regret the content of his words, but believes he spoke prematurely on the subject.
The statement comes after a period of about 100 days in which Motta managed to avoid public pronouncements on the events of January 8th during his campaign for the presidency of the House. The topic is especially sensitive because it divides opinions between those who, like the Federal Police and Minister Alexandre de Moraes, classify the acts as an attempted coup, and others, mainly linked to the Bolsonaro camp, who consider them as demonstrations that got out of control.
Regarding the bill proposing amnesty for those convicted for the acts of January 8th, Motta confirms the intention to schedule it for debate, but without a timeline for the first half of 2024. The uncertainty surrounding the timeline also reflects the current political landscape, as even parliamentarians aligned with Jair Bolsonaro (PL) believe more time is needed to ensure the bill's approval.
