PT members use CPMI photo to say they had a majority in voting on Lulinha

The vote on a package of 87 requests, which include breaking the banking and tax secrecy of President Lula’s eldest son and a former partner at Banco Master, generated a political imbroglio between government and opposition parliamentarians.

The requests were approved en bloc under protests of “coup” and “fraud” by PT parliamentarians, who took photos of the session to convince the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), to annul the vote.

According to the images, there are 14 parliamentarians opposed to approving the requests, which, according to government officials, would be enough to reject them. The president of the CPI, senator Carlos Viana (Podemos-MG), disputes this by saying that the account is wrong.

The whole mess began when, with the support of government officials, the commission decided to vote on the 87 items on the agenda in one fell swoop instead of one by one, as requested by the opposition. This first vote was nominal and the result was 18 to 12 — some parliamentarians participated in the session virtually.

At that time, the feeling was that the opposition would be defeated once again in its attempt to focus the CPI’s attention on Fábio Luis’s financial transactions. To defend themselves from the criticism that they were acting to “shield” the investigation, the PT members explained that they would block the agenda until Viana put to a vote requests on the accounts of senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) and right-wing governors, such as Ibaneis Rocha (Distrito Federal) and Cláudio Castro (Rio).

After the decision to consider the requests en bloc, the deputies and senators began deliberating on whether to approve it or not. Viana declared that, unlike the first, that vote would be symbolic. In other words, whoever was against the package would have to stand up and whoever was in favor of it would have to remain seated.

From then on, the confusion began. Fourteen government parliamentarians spoke out against it, but Viana only counted seven and approved the approval of the requests. Despite the wrong count — later admitted by Viana —, the confusion remained regarding what, in fact, was the quorum for the session.

Viana and the opposition say that the valid quorum was 31 parliamentarians, registered in the first vote. According to him, the deliberations took place “jointly”. And, therefore, even with 14 votes against, the government supporters did not achieve a majority and were defeated.

— At that moment, within the procedure that was initiated, the quorum was 31, as shown on the panel. 16 votes were needed. (They) were not in plenary.

In the PT’s account, as the vote was symbolic, only the quorum of parliamentarians present at that moment was valid, which totaled 21, according to deputy Paulo Pimenta (PT-RS), leader of the government members on the commission. With that number, the PT members would have emerged victorious.

— What happened was fraud in the vote count. It was a deliberate action by the president of the commission and we will deliberate in the Ethics Council against him for violating the results of a vote and a dishonest attitude — accused Pimenta.

Behind the scenes, government officials declare that they hope they will cancel the vote with Davi Alcolumbre. Pimenta explained that he showed the president the images of the voting which, according to him, prove the fraud. If Alcolumbre does not intervene, PT members do not rule out the possibility of appealing to the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

Viana, in turn, argued that she has a good relationship with Alcolumbre, but has not spoken to him for more than a month. The president of the CPI has already asked several times to extend the duration of the commission, which officially ends at the end of March.