Lula signals nomination of Messiah to the STF, and allies await definition

After a conversation on Monday night with Senator Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva indicated to allies that he will announce the choice of the Union’s attorney general, Jorge Messias, for the open position at the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in the coming days. The government’s expectation is that the announcement will take place this Wednesday, before Lula travels to the G20 summit in South Africa.

Pacheco is his colleagues’ favorite for the Supreme Court seat. But, in the conversation with him on Monday, the PT member, according to allies, indicated his preference for Messias. For the senator, the president had reserved the position of candidate for the government of Minas Gerais. But Pacheco repeated to Lula that he intends to end his public life at the end of the current term, in 2026.

In the view of the president’s assistants, if Pacheco left the conversation with an agreement to run for the Minas Gerais government, he would indicate to the other senators, who defend his name for the Supreme Court, a pacified scenario with the president. As this did not happen, resistance to Messiah, in the Planalto Palace’s view, could intensify.

If the nomination is confirmed, Messias will have to be questioned by the Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ) of the Senate and then approved by at least 41 parliamentarians in the plenary. The only three times the House barred names were in 1894, in the First Republic, during the government of Floriano Peixoto.

Last week, the close vote in the Senate for the reappointment of the Attorney General of the Republic, Paulo Gonet, raised alarm among government allies. Gonet was approved for a new term in the PGR by 45 votes to 26, the tightest score since redemocratization.

Yesterday, Lula spent the day in Belém in meetings related to COP30, and today the president will stay in the federal capital during the morning and travel in the afternoon to São Paulo, where he will participate in the opening ceremony of the Auto Show. From São Paulo, he leaves for South Africa. The return to Brazil will take place on Tuesday. The trip will also include a visit to Mozambique.

Delay in choosing

According to allies, Lula went to talk with Pacheco, on Monday night in Planalto, with the expectation that Pacheco would accept to be his candidate in Minas next year. But even with the senators’ broad preference for Pacheco, already expressed by the president of the House, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), on October 20th in a meeting at Palácio da Alvorada, Lula is not willing to review his decision to nominate Messias.

In the conversation with Pacheco, Lula told the senator, according to allies, that he would have another path than him to the STF, in reference to his preference for appointing Messias.

One month after Luís Roberto Barroso’s retirement, the current process of choosing his successor is already the fourth longest of Lula’s three terms as President of the Republic. The wait reinforces the PT member’s tendency in the current administration, in which the two ministers chosen so far were the ones he took the longest before appointing: Flávio Dino, in 58 days, and Cristiano Zanin, in 51.

After them, the only one still ahead of the current wait was Carmen Lúcia, appointed by Lula after 42 days in 2006. The other seven ministers that the president placed in the Court needed less than 20 days until their appointment.