President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is preparing a second push to place Jorge Messias on Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF), after the Senate rejected the president’s first nomination in a historically rare defeat for the Planalto Palace, the seat of Brazil’s executive branch.
According to Metrópoles, Lula’s aides believe Senate President Davi Alcolumbre, from União Brasil in Amapá state, may be less willing to block Messias again because of the growing political fallout from the Banco Master case. Federal Police investigators are examining possible irregularities involving investments by Amapá Previdência, the state pension fund, in the bank led by businessman Daniel Vorcaro, Metrópoles reported.
A Rare Senate Defeat
The Senate rejected Messias by 42 votes to 34, with one abstention, according to BBC News Brasil. He needed 41 votes to be confirmed. The vote made Messias one of only a handful of presidential nominees to Brazil’s highest court ever rejected by Congress, and the first such rejection since the 19th century, during the administration of President Floriano Peixoto.
Messias, Brazil’s attorney general and a close Lula ally, had already survived a hearing in the Senate’s Constitution and Justice Committee by 16 votes to 11, the narrowest margin for a Supreme Court nominee since Brazil’s return to democracy, BBC reported. The full Senate vote exposed the limits of Lula’s congressional operation in his third presidential term.
Political scientist Creomar de Souza told BBC News Brasil that the defeat showed the government’s earlier wins in Congress had overstated its real legislative strength. He said Alcolumbre won a partial victory by blocking Messias, but would now face a “rebound effect” in his relationship with the government and Lula’s allies.
The Banco Master Factor
The Banco Master case has become a Brasília pressure point because it touches figures in both the Senate and the STF. G1 reported that the case affected Supreme Court justices Alexandre de Moraes, because of a contract between his wife and Vorcaro, and Dias Toffoli, because a company linked to him sold part of a resort to the same businessman.
G1 also reported that the case reached Alcolumbre because Amapá’s pension fund, which had an Alcolumbre ally in its management, had dealings with Vorcaro. André Mendonça, an evangelical justice who supported Messias, later became the STF rapporteur for the Banco Master case and advanced the investigation, according to the same report.
That sequence helped turn the Messias nomination into a dispute not only between Lula and the Senate, but also among factions around Brazil’s top court. G1 said allies of the government viewed resistance inside the STF itself as one reason for Messias’s defeat. One government figure quoted by the blog said: “Our people, in the STF, were against Messias.”
What Comes Next
Metrópoles reported that Lula announced the renewed Messias nomination on May 29 after speaking with government Senate leader Jaques Wagner, from the Workers’ Party (PT), and Senator Weverton Rocha, from the Democratic Labour Party (PDT). Government aides expect Lula to formally send the nomination back to the Senate after speaking with Alcolumbre.
One government source told Metrópoles that Lula “would not announce this now if he were not going to send it soon.” The claim is based on single-source reporting and reflects the government’s internal reading, not an official Senate timetable.
Alcolumbre personally worked against Messias before the first vote, according to Metrópoles, asking several senators to oppose Lula’s nominee. BBC reported that Alcolumbre had long preferred former Senate president Rodrigo Pacheco for the STF seat.
The next phase will test whether the Banco Master inquiry weakens Alcolumbre’s hand or hardens the Senate’s resistance. It will also show whether Lula can rebuild a majority for a nominee who has already suffered one of the most unusual defeats in modern Brazilian judicial politics.