Brazil's Supreme Court, caught between scandals and elections: the De Moraes case shakes politics
Brazil's Federal Supreme Court faces a grave credibility crisis weeks before the presidential elections on 4 October.
Brazil's Federal Supreme Court: from democratic arbiter to epicentre of political scandal
Brazil's Federal Supreme Court (STF), an institution that four years ago proved decisive in upholding the country's democracy, is today experiencing an unprecedented credibility crisis. According to elmundo.es, the scandals surrounding its magistrates—particularly the so-called "super-judge" Alexandre de Moraes—have erupted in the midst of campaigning for the presidential elections on 4 October, in a climate of intense polarisation.
"Defenders of democracy have become a threat," The Economist summed up in recent days.
Lula and Bolsonaro, both in the eye of the hurricane
Brazil will elect a president on 4 October, with a second round scheduled for 25 October. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is seeking to govern for a fourth time, between the ages of 81 and 85. Flávio Bolsonaro, meanwhile, is seeking to reclaim power for the right, whilst his father, Jair, is serving a 27-year and three-month prison sentence for leading a failed coup attempt between 2022 and 2023 and is banned from running again.
The storm, however, reaches both candidates. The scandal enveloping De Moraes resembles, according to elmundo.es, a matryoshka doll: each layer reveals a new compromised figure.
In the months between October 2022 and January 2023, the STF—alongside Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron—was decisive in preventing Jair Bolsonaro from rejecting his electoral defeat to Lula by 50.9% to 49.1%. Three days before the handover of power, Bolsonaro left the country for Orlando, Florida. Shortly afterwards, on 8 January 2023, his supporters stormed the Three Powers Plaza in Brasília.
De Moraes: from powerful to accused
Nominated to the STF by then vice president Michel Temer, De Moraes accumulated over years an authority that, in practice, exceeded that of the executive branch itself. The peculiar functioning of the Supreme Court—eleven members who frequently delegate decisions to a single judge—amplified his influence. He became the chief adversary of the Bolsonaros and generated friction with Donald Trump and Elon Musk over his restrictions on the social network X.
Today, that power has become a source of institutional embarrassment.
The imprisoned banker who threatens to sink the STF
The axis of the scandal is Daniel Vorcaro, a powerful banker currently detained for heading a bribery scheme that taints both the left and right of Brazilian politics. It is Vorcaro who, according to the investigation, can destroy De Moraes's career.
André Mendonça, an STF magistrate tasked with investigating Master Bank—an entity owned by Vorcaro—recently suspended the head of the Federal Police, whom he accuses of illegally spying on him to ascertain the content of his investigations. Mendonça released part of the investigated material and seriously exposed De Moraes.
In that documentation, a close link between the banker and the magistrate is evident: Vorcaro wrote to De Moraes to obtain information about the progress of investigations against him. No responses from the judge to those queries are recorded, but there does appear a multi-million-pound contract signed between Vorcaro and the law firm of Viviane Barci, De Moraes's wife. The magistrate himself, according to released information, reviewed and edited that contract.
The two main newspapers of São Paulo, Folha and O Estado, called for De Moraes's immediate resignation. Lula, for his part, described the disclosures as "selective revelations" and demanded that the full investigation be opened "whatever the consequences". De Moraes passed that same request to Edson Fachin, president of the STF.
This Tuesday, in a hearing described as potentially explosive, the STF must pronounce on the De Moraes case.
Vorcaro's shadow also covers Flávio Bolsonaro
The scandal damages not exclusively the left side of the political spectrum. Flávio Bolsonaro appears equally linked to the imprisoned banker. Vorcaro financed Dark Horse, a film presented as a documentary about Jair Bolsonaro's life. The Federal Police describe "direct interaction" between the politician and the banker, and suspect that part of the film's financing concealed funds for the presidential campaign.
"Who benefits most from the scandal: Lula, Flávio or an outsider?", asked the newspaper O Globo in recent days. The answers are multiple in the face of weeks anticipated to be even more turbulent.
A recently released poll placed Bolsonaro above Lula for the first time in a hypothetical October second round. The rightward wave sweeping across Latin America is knocking at the door of the region's leading power, in the midst of an institutional crisis that threatens to redefine the balance of power before Brazilians even head to the polls.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)