In a democratic country, why would Bolsonaro flee if he is innocent?
No court has ever declared him quote-unquote "innocent". I'm not saying he should be in jail because I believe in due process, but I am also not saying "he wasn't guilty" from the perspective of the electorate
Said differently, "In a democratic country, why would the electorate vote to reelect someone who was objectively guilty of corruption but is currently free due to lousy due process?" is arguably the better question to ask
Preemptive dis-disclaimer: I voted for neither candidate and have no skin in the game, so to speak
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Apart from all that is always surprising to see folks that work in scientific fields to support Bolsonaro who was completely agains any form of science and education, basically being happy that Brazil would be just a commodities exporter ftw.
> Apart from all that is always surprising to see folks that work in scientific fields to support Bolsonaro who was completely agains any form of science and education
Are you a software developer in Brazil? I wonder if you're going to enjoy the regulation of the software developer profession. It's coming.
I think this is yet another pointless fearmongering anecdote, that shouldn’t be on this site. Anyway, I am a software developer that is in the market long enough to see that this sort of regulation thing is never going to materialise.
I know for a fact that investiment in scientific fields was reduced to near zero during Bolsonaro years and that for me is inadmissible.
No. Lula and the other authorities congratulated him and thanked him for helping conduct fair elections. Those in turn got Lula elected.
Not according to justice.
> No court has ever declared him quote-unquote "innocent".
No, because he is innocent until proven guilty. Which he was not, since as yourself has said, due process was not followed - which annuls the validity of the entire thing. There are good reasons why nearly all justice systems in the world follow that principle, and you seem to not only be aware of it but also in favour.
There are very few concrete pieces of evidence against him. Unsigned contracts; a lot of declarations from lenience accords (either accuse him or serve tens of years in jail), some were even retracted later; literally the opinion of judges (who had been leading the prosecution - check Geoffrey Robertson's opinions on the matter for an expert analysis); the list of vices, illegalities and other problems with all the processes against him go on.
He was politically persecuted because otherwise he would have won the elections against Bolsonaro, and some of the judges in those processes were due for political advantages.
> Not according to justice.
I'm arguing that according to common sense, he is guilty of corruption.
I didn't say he should be in jail. In fact, I said the opposite -- he should be free. But I also said why vote for someone who's implicated in so many corruption scandals? The pile of evidence is astounding.
I can understand "I voted for him because Bolsonaro is terrible", but I can't understand "I voted for Lula because he's great".
I don't think any court in Brazil is "impartial". Corruption is absolutely rampant. The decision over who gets prosecuted and convicted hinges more on the ides of march than on actual merit or graveness of crimes committed. So every politician is, by definition, "politically persecuted".
Someone else had asked on this very thread in a now-deleted comment:
> Do you believe the judge was impartial in finding him guilty nonetheless? Or are you saying you've seen the evidence itself and would believe he was obviously guilty even if the court had ruled otherwise?
The latter. From the perspective of public opinion and objective facts, he was implicated in a variety of corruption scandals. The courts were able to prove wrongdoing. They did so by using illegal means, hence the conviction was annulled. But his wrongdoing wasn't magically undone. From the perspective of the electorate, there's no reason to vote for him if you believe these crimes should bar someone from office.
> I'm arguing that according to common sense, he is guilty of corruption.
And I argue that it's a good thing that _common sense_ is not a criterion for convicting someone - in theory. Which clearly you agree with.
> But I also said why vote for someone who's implicated in so many corruption scandals? The pile of evidence is astounding.
Is it really? Evidence that implicates him as a person, showing that he used his political influence for personal gain? Evidence other than people who had already been convicted themselves and were facing an option of either saying what the courts wanted to hear and get lenience, or facing life or near-life sentences? (Not in the technical sense, since Brazil doesn't have life sentences, but for all practical purposes yes)
Evidence other than unsigned contracts? A visit to a flat that was actually sold to a third party, not involved in any of this? Evidence other than a paddleboat in a country house of a friend of his family? Evidence other than words like "I don't have proof but I have the conviction" from the judge who condemned him?
Real evidence that would justify putting him in prison?
Note that I'm not saying he hasn't committed any crimes but what I do know is that other than through a lot of undue process and fabrications they managed to condemn him.
I believe in fair justice, and the only logical conclusion from these processes is that he is innocent. They turned his life around for years and still had to resort to a process fraught with illegalities and wrongdoing to condemn him. That's not fair, and in fact it's downright criminal, so he's not guilty. Since he's innocent until proven guilty, which he wasn't, the only possible conclusion is his innocence.
In any case, according to _common sense_ he should be in office. That's what elections are for. Which he now is and, in my opinion, both Brazil and the rest of the world are better off for it. You're very welcome to disagree, of course.
> That's a much better reason to throw out a case compared to "he should have been tried in Brasília".
I agree.
That said, the matter of jurisdiction comes first. The justice acted correctly and fixed the overarching vice in the process by sending it to Brasília. It should never have been tried in Curitiba, and if you think he's guilty of all those crimes, you should have joined the chorus of the crowd who just wanted justice to run its course in the right way and pushed for his case to be sent to Brasília in the first place.
He was politically tried in Curitiba against due process, on top of all the other vices.
Brasília should have been where they would then review everything else, but alas now it's too late.
Ironically, Lula, his lawyers and his supporters have been all along the ones pushing for him to actually face justice.
> It's hilarious to watch a supreme court judge (...) say that actual judges aren't "competent" to try Lula's case.
You also seem to be confused about what _competence_ means in this context.
What they said is not that Moro is an incompetent judge. This has nothing to do with his ability to do his job.
_Competence_, in this case, means that his court was not the correct jurisdiction for the trial. Nothing more, nothing less.
The bar for putting someone in prison is higher than the one for not voting in that person. Not sure why you keep conflating the two.
Thinking Lula is a great or even serviceable candidate is unfathomable to me.
Agreed. That this man was not only allowed to run for presidency but actually won is probably the greatest humiliation ever imposed on the people of Brazil. I barely have words to describe how it felt to watch this guy be sworn into power yesterday.
I find having a science denier with fascist overtones to be worse, but alas I'm not trying to say how I feel is how all the people of Brazil feel.
> I barely have words to describe how it felt to watch this guy be sworn into power yesterday.
Me neither, but probably for the opposite reason.
I do have Bolsonaro and Mourão to thank for the beautiful ceremony where populars representing all background passed the Presidential sash to Lula though. Had they not been so cowardly and vindicative, one of them might have been there in place of all those beautiful people. That was a ceremony which is going to appear in history books for decades or centuries to come!
I'll end this pointless argument by agreeing with you on this. Those bastards are cowards. Seeing Bolsonaro run away like a rat was just as humiliating to the people who supported him and the brazilian right in general.
I didn't. I merely said that _common sense_ doesn't say that Lula should be in prison, and it never should - as you rightfully said, the bar for putting someone in prison is higher than popular vote.
I then proceeded to say that common sense does say he should be in office. He was, after all, voted in.
So you're just restating what I said?
> I then proceeded to say that common sense does say he should be in office. He was, after all, voted in.
I didn't say he shouldn't be in office today given he was voted in. I'm saying people generally shouldn't have voted for him because it's illogical to support such a bad candidate. I also said I understand that people voted for him because the only other alternative was Bolsonaro -- hell, I started my comment with that. The corollary to that being that we shouldn't celebrate Lula's victory. It's the lesser of two evils, but a tragedy nonetheless. That's the crux of my point. Everything else you're arguing is tangential, arguably irrelevant and feels like you have an agenda to convince others (me?) that Lula is great because he's "innocent" (for some value of "innocent").
No, you literally said:
> I'm arguing that according to common sense, he is guilty of corruption.
That's what I was disagreeing with.
> I'm saying people generally shouldn't have voted for him because it's illogical to support such a bad candidate.
That's fair. It's also a personal opinion which seems to go against common sense, given that he was in fact voted in.
> I also said I understand that people voted for him because the only other alternative was Bolsonaro
Yep, a lot of people did that. In fact, I suspect a lot of people did the opposite as well - voted for Bolsonaro thinking he was the least bad of 2 bad choices.
> The corollary to that being that we shouldn't celebrate Lula's victory.
Again, an opinion. In my personal opinion, one of the greater tragedies is having Alckmin for vice-president. Having Temer with Dilma was a grave mistake. I just hope this time around they've learned something.
> feels like you have an agenda to convince others (me?) that Lula is great because he's "innocent" (for some value of "innocent").
Not at all, I was arguing about his innocence. Everything else are personal opinions on how good or bad a candidate he is and I'm not in any way trying to convince you to change yours.
In fact, I do think we mostly agree with regards to the facts. We do seem to disagree with regards to his actual innocence (as opposed to technical) but I'm not quite arguing about that either.
In any case, I do see your point-of-view clearly (I think) and I absolutely respect it, even where I might disagree. Or perhaps even more so, as it enriches the debate.
No surprise that the most vocal judge prosecuting these charges was later named as minister by Bolsonaro.