BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil’s lower house of Congress has voted to fast-track an amnesty bill backed by the right-wing opposition that could include relief for former President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters sentenced to prison for their roles in 2023 riots after his electoral defeat.
Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest, was sentenced last week by a Supreme Court panel to 27 years and three months in prison for plotting a coup to overturn the 2022 election, which he lost to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
His sons and supporters have touted legislative amnesty as one of his political avenues to freedom, although the legality of such a move remains contentious. Two Supreme Court justices have already argued that any attempt to pardon those convicted of plotting a coup would be unconstitutional.
In a procedural vote, lawmakers voted on Wednesday, by a margin of 311-163, for an amnesty bill – which has still not been defined – to bypass committee debates and go straight to a plenary vote.
A preliminary version of the amnesty bill under discussion would pardon those involved in “political demonstrations” from October 30, 2022 onward, but lawmakers can alter the proposal ahead of a final vote.
The period covered by the original bill includes the January 8, 2023 attack on government buildings in Brasilia by Bolsonaro supporters, many of whom have been convicted in courts.
Some lawmakers have suggested the bill could shorten their sentences rather than wiping records clean. Others are pushing to include amnesty for Bolsonaro himself, which might keep him out of prison but still leave him ineligible for next year’s presidential election.
Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of the former president, told Reuters on the day his father was convicted that legislative amnesty would be a shortcut to “achieving some form of justice … and bringing peace to Brazil.”
House Speaker Hugo Motta has left the contours of the bill up for debate.
“We have different views and divergent interests in the house regarding the events of January 8, 2023. It is up to the sovereign plenary to decide,” Motta said as he opened the procedural vote on Wednesday night.
Motta designated Congressman Paulinho da Força as sponsor of the bill, tasking him with drafting the final version for a vote, giving him room to significantly alter the bill’s text.
The lawmaker signaled that as sponsor he would seek a compromise, ruling out the “broad, general and unrestricted” amnesty demanded by Bolsonaro’s closest allies.
“I think we will have to do something in the middle, which may not please the left or the right, but that pleases the majority of the house,” he told reporters.
The Lula administration has opposed the amnesty proposal.
“Far from paving the way for any pacification, it would be an affront to the Judiciary and the country’s democratic conscience,” Institutional Relations Minister Gleisi Hoffmann, wrote on social media.
(Reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello in Brasilia and Eduardo Simoes in Sao Paulo; Writing by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Richard Chang)
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