The document has more than 3 thousand signatures and must be read at USP by former Supreme Minister Celso de Mello during an event on August 11th, celebrating Student Day.
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The text says that Brazil is going through a moment “of immense danger for democratic normality” and highlights that “threats to other powers and sectors of civil society are intolerable”.
Although it does not mention the name of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), allies of the government wing saw the manifesto as a declaration against the president.
On Twitter, the Chief Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira, stated that bankers' adherence to the manifesto occurred due to the loss of revenue in transactions, after the approval of Pix.
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President @jairbolsonaro, do you know why bankers today can sign letters even against the President of the Republic, instead of remaining silent in fear during the exchange rate freezes of the past?
– Ciro Nogueira (@ciro_nogueira) July 26, 2022
Nogueira argued that bankers are free from persecution and can sign manifestos. However, he highlighted that this happened because the Central Bank “transferred more than 30, 40 million reais in fees that banks earned with each bank transfer and today it is free”.
Among the names who signed the manifesto are bankers Roberto Setubal and Pedro Moreira Salles, co-presidents of the board of directors of Itaú Unibanco, and Candido Bracher, former president of the institution.
The manifesto was published a week after the meeting held by Bolsonaro with dozens of foreign ambassadors. In this ocasion, the president made unfounded attacks on the credibility of electronic voting machines. Furthermore, he also attacked the STF ministers.
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Check out the full manifesto
Letter to Brazilians in defense of the Democratic Rule of Law!
In August 1977, amidst the celebrations of the sesquicentenary of the founding of legal courses in the country, professor Goffredo da Silva Telles Junior, teacher of all of us, in the free territory of Largo de São Francisco, read the Letter to Brazilians, in which he denounced the illegitimacy of the then military government and the state of exception in which we lived.
It also called for the reestablishment of the rule of law and the convening of a National Constituent Assembly.
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The seed planted bore fruit. Brazil overcame the military dictatorship. The National Constituent Assembly rescued the legitimacy of our institutions, reestablishing the democratic rule of law with the prevalence of respect for fundamental rights.
We have the powers of the Republic, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary, all independent, autonomous and committed to respecting and ensuring compliance with the greatest pact, the Federal Constitution.
Under the mantle of the 1988 Federal Constitution, about to complete its 34th anniversary, we went through free and periodic elections, in which the political debate on projects for the country was always democratic, with the final decision being up to popular sovereignty.
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Goffredo's lesson is enshrined in our Constitution: “All power emanates from the people, who exercise it through their elected representatives or directly, under the terms of this Constitution”.
Our elections with the electronic counting process have served as an example in the world. We had several alternations of power regarding the results of the polls and the republican transition of government. Electronic voting machines proved to be safe and reliable, as did the Electoral Court.
Our democracy has grown and matured, but much remains to be done. We live in a country with profound social inequalities, with shortages in essential public services, such as health, education, housing and public safety. We have a long way to go in developing our economic potential in a sustainable way. The State appears inefficient in the face of its numerous challenges. Demands for greater respect and equal conditions in matters of race, gender and sexual orientation are still far from being fully met.
In the coming days, amid these challenges, we will begin the electoral campaign to renew the mandates of state and federal legislatures and executives. At this moment, we should have the apex of democracy with the dispute between the various political projects aiming to convince the electorate of the best proposal for the country's direction in the coming years.
Instead of a civic celebration, we are going through a moment of immense danger to democratic normality, a risk to the institutions of the Republic and insinuations of contempt for the results of the elections.
Unfounded and unsupported attacks questionThey love the smoothness of the electoral process and the democratic rule of law so hard won by Brazilian society. The threats to other powers and sectors of civil society and the incitement to violence and disruption of the constitutional order are intolerable.
We have recently witnessed authoritarian madness that put the secular North American democracy at risk. There, the attempts to destabilize democracy and the people's confidence in the fairness of the elections were not successful, they will not be successful here either.
Our civic consciousness is much greater than opponents of democracy imagine. We know how to put minor differences aside in favor of something much bigger, the defense of the democratic order.
Imbued with the civic spirit that supported the Letter to Brazilians of 1977 and gathered in the same free territory of Largo de São Francisco, regardless of the electoral or partisan preference of each one, we call on Brazilians to remain alert in the defense of democracy and respect for the election result.
In today's Brazil there is no longer room for authoritarian setbacks. Dictatorship and torture belong to the past. The solution to the immense challenges facing Brazilian society necessarily involves respecting the results of the elections.
In civic vigil against attempted ruptures, we shout in unison:
Democratic State of Law Always!!!!
(Top photo: USP Law School/Reproduction/Wikimedia Commons)
