AND Editorial: Covered mastermind

We hereby share an unofficial translation of the last Editorial published by A Nova Democracia (AND).

The confessed executors of Marielle Franco and Anderson Gomes, her motorbike driver, were convicted, after more than 6 years of impunity and sabotage of the investigations by the “authorities”. Ronnie Lessa was sentenced to 78 years and 9 months, and Élcio de Queiroz, who drove the vehicle during the execution, was sentenced to 59 years and 8 months. All accusations were accepted and endorsed by the jury. Despite the show produced by the press monopoly and excerpts of the sentence, about “justice is slow and twisted, but it arrives”, the truth is that it did not show up.

There are many questions and points to make research on, which would link Mr. Jair Bolsonaro and other coup plotters to the executors, and which no one even mentions. The personal connection between Élcio de Queiroz, Ronnie Lessa and the head of Bolsonarism is just one of them; another one is the close connection between Bolsonaro and Adriano da Nóbrega, executed in a police operation inside BA with all the “file burning” notes, when he was appointed as the intermediary between the executors and the responsible ones. Nothing of this was clarified. There is no doubt that Marielle’s execution is related to far-right movements; and there is no doubt that they are trying to cover up the real mastermind, political and intellectual mentor of this action, who has the answer in Bolsonarism. The question is no longer “who ordered the murder of Marielle”, but: why are the “authorities” – including the false left, which remains silent and seeks to bury the case – covering the person who ordered it?

On the other hand, the lack of clarification of who ordered the political crime reveals an exhaustion, not only historical, but already political, of the old democracy in Brazil. A crime like the one of which Marielle was a victim, in those circumstances and with the purpose it had, not ending with the exemplary punishment for the political and intellectual mentor, reveals that all limits have been blurred and that the regime no longer has the legitimacy even among those who support it. Marielle was a victim of the old democracy which, unable to suppress the coup that developed from within, produced Bolsonarism itself and fed the far right with decades of appeasement and conciliation. In addition to being a victim of Bolsonarism, Marielle was a victim of her own illusions about “democracy”. And when such a case unfolds clearly protecting the mastermind, as absolving him by omission while condemning the executors and finding a “mastermind” to display in the showcase, it shows the already practical limits of opportunism to its own members.

***

The so-called “PEC for Public Security”, proposed by the current government of Luiz Inácio, is the living soul of the police State. First, it would transform the Federal Highway Police into the Federal Ostensive Police or Rapid Deployment Police, intended for patrolling highways, waterways and railways, in addition to protecting federal assets, facilities and services and “providing emergency and temporary assistance to security forces of the states, when this is requested by their governors”. This is, in other words, formalizing what Bolsonaro already implemented, and for which he was criticized, including by the false left which currently forms government. The Federal Police will now “investigate criminal offenses against the political and social order” and “against the properties, services and interests of the Union, including in woods, forests, preservation areas, or conservation units”. In other words, the “democratic” government is reconstituting the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS), whose responsibilities were officially the same and more. Now, this project could be created by Bolsonaro himself. It is an aberration and a disaster, which, although not surprising, considering that the PT government has already approved the creation of the National Force and the anti-terrorism law in the past, is still scandalous.

***

We can see how the country is being led by the “pragmatism” of supporting the least-worst. In the economic area: relevance in agribusiness, not even a promise of “agrarian reform”, de-industrialization and de-nationalization, the once essential state-owned companies already privatized remain untouched; on the international level, verbiage by the left and flattery to Russia and China, but in summary of this practice the balance is the shameful submission to the old and customary diktat of Uncle Sam (USA), such as the recent – and scandalous – veto of Venezuela’s entry into the BRICS; in national politics: delivery of the Budget and the political agenda itself to Colonel Arthur Lira and the parliamentary right, giving them all the contributions to elect the immense majority of mayors aligned with the big landlord right across the country, while Lira and his close friends, in turn, will vote for the Amnesty for the “green chickens” of January 8th, which will give new impetus to the Bolsonaro agitations and, perhaps, will free Bolsonaro himself, and they will also form an alliance against the PT and the false left in 2026; and, even on the topic of “public security”, where it is easier to be anti-Bolsonaro, the government fulfills the desire of the Bolsonaro supporters since they intend to reestablish the DOPS under the masquerade of a “new Federal Police” and take a step forward in the police state. There is no doubt: social democracy, opportunist and cynical, is the previous step to fascism by leading the masses and middle sectors to frustration and resentment with unfulfilled promises and hope in the old democracy as a solution to their problems, and thus preparing the entire ground giving platform and argument for fascist hysteria, even though subjectively opportunism believes that it is a barrier to fascism. A resounding failure, a fraud on the people and the Nation.

It is necessary for true democrats and progressives to wake up more, and those who are still deluded to wake up, and for everyone to support the revolutionary mobilization of the masses of tens of millions of impoverished people, in the class struggle, especially the peasantry; democratic freedoms and the rights of the people, far from being threatened by the sharpening of the confrontation between antagonistic classes, can only be assured and guaranteed in this way, because only in this way is it possible to awaken popular consciousness to its urgency and importance. Cast away illusions, prepare for struggle!