Messias will need to strengthen ties with Alcolumbre, who had Pacheco as his favorite

Appointed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the vacancy of Federal Supreme Court (STF), Jorge Messias will have as his first mission to strengthen relations with the Senate leadership, which will need to approve his name.

Messias has access to the House because he previously served as chief of staff for Senator Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), current leader of the government in the Senate, but he will need to strengthen ties with President Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP). This week, Wagner stated that Messiah has no “edges” in the House.

Concern about the vote grew after the Attorney General of the Republic, Paulo Gonet, was reappointed last week by a narrow margin — just four votes above the minimum necessary. Behind the scenes, base leaders admit that they only avoided an unprecedented defeat thanks to an emergency operation that took two votes from the opposition and counted on the direct coordination of Davi Alcolumbre to keep the quorum high in a week of emptying.

Wagner should act as Messias’ main electoral campaigner in the Senate until the hearing. The tendency is for Lula’s nominee to begin a pilgrimage through the House’s offices. The government leader will likely help you arrange these conversations.

The senator from Bahia moves well through the Senate, with good dialogue, including with opposition parliamentarians.

Alcolumbre made it clear that he had a preference for Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), his predecessor in command of the Senate and an ally. PT members admit that Minas Gerais would be approved more easily, but they do not believe that there is a risk of Messiah being rejected in an unprecedented way.

The fact that the current attorney general of the Union is an evangelical of the Baptist Church will be an asset used in conversations with the most conservative senators.

Messiah will need to be questioned by the Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ) of the Senate and have his name approved by the main plenary of the House. At least 41 votes are needed for approval.

Who is Messiah?

A career public servant, Messias was a prosecutor at the Central Bank and a prosecutor at the National Treasury. When he became involved in the AGU careers union movement, he worked at the Ministry of Education, under Mercadante’s management, where he was Secretary of Regulation. It was during this period that he began to get closer to PT leaders.

During the Dilma government, he was deputy head of Legal Affairs and worked with the former president in one of the PT’s most delicate moments at the Palácio do Planalto. At the time, his name was exposed nationally due to a telephone interception published by Lava Jato, in a conversation between Lula and Dilma, in March 2016. At the time, Dilma informed Lula that she would send, through “Bessias”, a term of office for him to sign and, thus, become minister of the Civil House. The interception was captured after the then judge Sergio Moro had ordered telephone operators to interrupt the recordings, which led to its disclosure being considered illegal by the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

Messias and Dilma never left each other. The former president attended Messias’ inauguration ceremony as AGU minister, in 2023, and at a dinner reserved for family and close friends. In 2019, Messias worked in the office of senator Jaques Wagner (PT-BA). With Lula’s victory in 2022, he played a prominent role in the transition, when he coordinated the group dedicated to topics related to Transparency, Integrity and Control.

Within the government, he built a close relationship with the Minister of Management, Esther Dweck, and the Minister of Agrarian Development, Paulo Teixeira. It also has among its main allies the ministers of the Civil House, Rui Costa, of Finance, Fernando Haddad, and the minister of Institutional Relations, Gleisi Hoffmann.