Daniel Silveira, the anti-system deputy that Jair Bolsonaro made a hero in Brazil

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Bolsonarism has a new hero: Daniel Silveira, the anti-system deputy with whom Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro opened a new front with the Judiciary by pardoning his conviction for anti-democratic acts.

Who is this 39-year-old former police officer who went from being a controversial member of the parliamentary “lower clergy” to being received with honors at the Planalto Presidential Palace after being sentenced in April to more than eight years in prison?

Undisciplined, fervently anti-leftist and threatening in front of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), his favorite target and the same one who sentenced him, Silveira began to be known in 2018.

Tall, muscular and dour, he had left the Rio de Janeiro police force to run for deputy and sparked outrage when during a street rally he tore down a sign honoring leftist former councilwoman Marielle Franco, whose murder sparked international condemnation.

Despite this, he was elected deputy with 31,000 votes for the Social Liberal Party in the same anti-system surge that catapulted Bolsonaro to the presidency in 2018.

Supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro express their support for him at a march in Rio de Janeiro on May 1. Photo: AFP

Loyalty to the president

Without access to the most intimate core of the far-right president, Silveira, who usually wears a metal pin with two pistols on his lapel, went on to show himself as one of the Bolsonarists most aligned with ideological guidelines.

His case before the STF began in February 2021, one day after Judge Alexandre de Moraes determined his imprisonment by appearing in a video threatening the court.

The “youtuber” deputy wanted “the people to enter the STF, take De Moraes by the neck, shake his egg head and throw him into a garbage dump.”

He also defended the AI-5, one of the most repressive acts of the last military dictatorship (1964-1985), which annulled several constitutional guarantees.

The judge of the Supreme Court of Brazil, Alexandre de Moraes, in a file image.  Photo: EFE

The judge of the Supreme Court of Brazil, Alexandre de Moraes, in a file image. Photo: EFE

Pardon and controversy

As his trial progressed, Bolsonaro, who was “heartbroken” to see him imprisoned, proved willing to protect him and when the STF sentenced him on April 20 to eight years and nine months in prison, he pardoned him as a “guarantee of freedom”.

Silveira had made headlines weeks earlier by sleeping one night in Congress to avoid the police placing an electronic anklet on him.

“I want to see how far someone’s insolence goes to break with the other powers,” he challenged.

The deputy already had a track record as undisciplined: as a policeman he accumulated 60 sanctions for insubordination and misconduct in six years, according to the Brazilian press.

After the pardon, followers and allies of Bolsonaro tried to turn the deputy into a martyr for freedom of expression. Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s son, compared the sentence to an “injustice” experienced by Jesus Christ.

“In the past criminals were amnestied, now innocents are amnesty,” Bolsonaro declared, at an act in Planalto in which Silveira, smiling, photographed himself holding a framed copy of the pardon decree as if it were a trophy.

The recognition also came to him in the Chamber of Deputies, where he was appointed member of the most important commission, the Constitution and Justice, pending clarification if the pardon also prevents the loss of mandate.

Deputies investigated

Silveira is not an exception in the hemicycle: among 513 deputies, at least a hundred are the target of investigationsaccording to data from the site Congresso em Foco.

His newfound popularity was also noted on the street on Sunday, when dozens of supporters cheered him on during a Bolsonarista demonstration in Rio de Janeiro.

Masks of Jair Bolsonaro and Daniel Silveira, at a march of government supporters in Rio de Janeiro, on Sunday.  Photo: EFE

Masks of Jair Bolsonaro and Daniel Silveira, at a march of government supporters in Rio de Janeiro, on Sunday. Photo: EFE

“Silveira has more symbolic than real importance in Bolsonaroism,” André Cesar, an analyst at the Hold consultancy, told AFP.

With the pardon, Bolsonaro at the same time inflamed his pulse with the STF, which has opened several investigations against him. The president repeatedly accused his judges – without evidence – of working for the return of the left, promoting fraud in elections through electronic ballot boxes.

The STF for now has not ruled on the complaints from various parties against the presidential pardon.

For César, the pardon is “a marketing move” for Bolsonaro’s “most ideological” base, five months before seeking re-election.

“It is an opportunity to divert attention from the real problems of the country,” said political scientist Paulo Calmon, from the University of Brasilia.

“Before, it was the pandemic; now, a disastrous economy,” with galloping inflation and a pyrrhic growth forecast of 1.1% in 2022, he added.

Fuente: AFP

CB

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