It has been two weeks since Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the right-wing populist Partido Liberal (PL) party defied the odds and polling to win the first round of the Brazilian presidential election. Now, there is only one week before the people of Brazil head to the polls again to ultimately decide who will be the person to lead the executive branch of the country for the next four years.
As part of that process, the two candidates who advanced to the run-off, Bolsonaro and incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the left-wing Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) party, took part in a debate on Sunday, 18 October, in São Paulo, Brazil. The event was broadcast by the Band TV network.
The moment that stood out the most did not reflect well on President Lula.
He, visibly unnerved, told his opponent: ‘You think you already won the election?…On the 25th, you are going to lose your immunity. Get ready, because you are going to lose your immunity. And you’re going to have a lot of problems. Because your life has a lot of investigations that will now move forward. If your friends aren’t letting them move, now they will.’
It is quite unusual to have a sitting president of a country threaten their political opponent with prosecution so bluntly. In Brazil, such threats seem even more credible than in most other countries.
Flávio Bolsonaro’s father, former president Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, who was in office from 2019 to 2023, is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for his efforts to overturn the 2022 presidential election results. President Lula himself had already spent over a year in prison between 2018 and 2019 for a corruption case—his original sentence was nine years’ imprisonment, but it was reduced on appeal and ultimately annulled by the Supreme Court of Brazil in 2021, after his sentence was already completed. At that point, he had already served eight years as President, from 2003 to 2011.
The president of Brazil does have pardon power. That means that if Flávio Bolsonaro prevails in the second round, he can issue a presidential pardon to his father. However, under the Brazilian system, the Supreme Court can also override a presidential pardon if it finds that it violates the ‘impersonality and morality’ standards outlined in the Constitution of Brazil. Most experts believe Bolsonaro’s pardon would be overturned by the Supreme Court.
In response to the threat of prosecution live on the debate stage, Senator Bolsonaro responded by bringing up Lula’s own corruption scandal from the past that ended in a one-year prison sentence for him.
Bolsonaro specifically highlighted the element of the criminal case against Lula in which he accepted bribes through donations to his Lula Institute, an organization founded by the president after his first two terms in office.
Eight out of the 36 people who have served as President of Brazil have also been detained or sentenced to prison in a criminal case after leaving office.
Parallel between Lula vs Bolsonaro and Trump vs Clinton Debate
The controversial exchange between President Lula and Senator Bolsonaro is reminiscent of a moment during the second presidential debate between former US secretary of State Hillary Clinton and businessman Donald Trump in October 2016.
During that debate, Secretary Clinton told the audience: ‘It is just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,’ to which Trump immediately responded: ‘Because you’d be in jail.’
However, that came across more like a one-line quip—that even drew cheers and laughter from the audience—than an actual threat of prosecution, unlike President Lula’s elaborate threat. Donald Trump ended up winning the 2016 election, and his Department of Justice, in fact, did refrain from seeking a criminal prosecution against Hillary Clinton.
Presidential Debate – DT: Bc you’d be in jail! – Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump
Trump tells Clinton that he would put her in jail. The Second Presidential Debate Town Hall – Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump – Moderated by Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz at Washington University in St. Louis. It’s scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT).
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