“True democracy requires that, at all times, the State become more and more open and permeable to the demands of society,” Lula said in a speech during a launch ceremony of the Participatory Pluriannual Plan (PPA) in Brasilia.
Without mentioning a name, but in clear reference to the defeated president Jair Bolsonaro, he pointed out that “an ugly mistake was made by those who, in recent years, thought it would be possible to govern decently without having to listen to civil society.”
He specified that everything “goes through the participatory construction of the Pluriannual Plan, through the strengthening of the councils and the resumption of national conferences.”
In his speech, Lula also made reference to the coup acts of January 8 in this capital and the necessary responsibility for the crimes.
According to the founder of the Workers’ Party, each person who participated will be tried “and will have the right to the presumption of innocence that I did not have.”
He remarked that “in this country there is no room for Nazis, for fascists and for those who do not like democracy.”
With calls for military intervention and rejection of Lula’s assumption of power, groups of radical supporters of Bolsonaro staged anti-democratic actions on January 8 in Brasilia. On that date, marked in black in national history, right-wing extremists violently broke in and looted the headquarters of the National Congress, the Federal Supreme Court (SF) and the Planalto Palace, bastion of the Executive Power.
Since yesterday, the STF judges whether to accept the complaints against 100 people accused of participating in the coup attempt. Trial priority is being given to the defendants who are still in prison and, to date, 86 women and 208 men remain detained in the Federal District prison system for involvement in the events.
The defendants are accused of various violations, such as criminal association, attempted abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, attempted coup d’état, inciting the animosity of the Armed Forces against constitutional powers, depredation of fallen public assets and incitement to crime.
The PPA is one of Brazil’s three budget laws.
The others are the Law of Budgetary Guidelines (LDO) and the Annual Budgetary Law (LOA).
The four-year plan must always be presented in the first year of the mandate. The Executive expects the participation of millions of people in the PPA, via conferences, and also through the digital platform.
ef/jcm/ocs
