Dosimetry rapporteur says the vote ‘is underway’, but there is no agreement with the PL

Representative Paulinho da Força (Solidariedade-SP), rapporteur of the Dosimetry bill, which could reduce sentences for those involved in coup acts and benefit former president Jair Bolsonaro, said that negotiations to vote on the text have progressed, but there is a lack of agreement with the PL, the former president’s party.

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“The conversations with the PL were not about those things. It was forwarded, but it didn’t resolve it. Let’s see if we can resolve it so we can vote. We are working,” he told Globo.

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) ordered this Tuesday that the former president be imprisoned at the Federal Police Superintendence in Brasília to serve the sentence of 27 years and three months determined by the Court for the attempted coup d’état after the electoral defeat in 2022. He had already been detained there since Saturday, but as a precautionary measure after he damaged the electronic ankle bracelet he was wearing.

At the weekend, after Bolsonaro was detained after preventive detention, Paulinho had said that the process accelerated the need to vote on the project.

”I believe that Bolsonaro’s arrest speeds up the voting process,” said the parliamentarian.

Centrão parties are trying to move forward with the initiative as a way of responding to Bolsonaro’s insistence on presenting himself as a candidate for president in 2026, despite being ineligible and in prison.

The idea is to show that there is no institutional support to put the former president back on the ballot, but, at the same time, to make a gesture to him and reduce part of his sentence in the coup plot.

The PL bench still insists on a broad amnesty, which would free Bolsonaro from prison and regain his eligibility, although this possibility is increasingly distant.

“For us, it’s amnesty. We’ve already announced what we’re going to do, present the preference highlights and vote. I’m sure it will be approved, we have the votes to approve it”, declared the leader of the PL in the Chamber, Sóstenes Cavalcante (RJ).

On the other hand, the government is against any reduction in sentences. Given this, even Centrão leaders in favor of the initiative admit that the scenario for approval is not easy and the year could end without the text having been voted on.

Still, the parties involved in the negotiations, mainly União Brasil and PP, want to approve Paulinho’s text before the end of the year. Time is short as the Chamber has less than two months until the end of the year and the House has to focus on the Budget.

In the Senate, parliamentarians, even those from the government, continue to say that they would agree to discuss a proposal to reduce sentences, which encourages the group that works to move the project forward.

The rapporteur in the Chamber has already met with almost all party benches in the House. He heard deputies from PL, PT, União Brasil, PP, Republicans, MDB, PSD, PSDB, Podemos, Solidariedade, Avante, PRD and Novo. With the exception of PT, which is against reducing sentences, and PL and Novo, which defend a broad amnesty, all benches were open to supporting the report, but are awaiting officialization.

The understanding is that the sentence reduction project is widely accepted by centrist parties in the Chamber and by part of the opposition, even if Bolsonarism’s speech is for a broad amnesty.

One of the versions of the text, which is not yet definitive because the report has not been filed, reduces penalties and unifies the crimes of coup d’état and violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, in addition to reducing the crimes of qualified damage and deterioration of listed property.

As a result, Bolsonaro’s sentence in the case of the coup plot would be reduced to between 7 and 11 years. The rapporteur has also said that his version of the proposal will be enough to free everyone who is currently in prison for being involved in the acts of January 8, 2023.

Although it may still undergo adjustments, the rapporteur has said that the negotiation to approve the project has been held up because it does not concern the content of the text, but rather the political climate. The idea is to make a short and objective opinion, which focuses on reducing sentences. The rapporteur should only publish the text, however, after ensuring that the project is ready to be approved.