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Brazilian MPs have voted in a controversial manner Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence significantly reducedA move that is expected to face considerable opposition from senators, the Supreme Court and the country’s leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
In a tense session that reportedly descended into chaos, Brazil’s lower house approved the bill in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
If enacted, the law could reduce Mr. Bolsonaro’s 27-year prison sentence to just over two years, according to its sponsor.
Mr Bolsonaro began serving his sentence last month After being found guilty of plotting a coup against President Lula following his defeat in the 2022 elections.
The bill, passed by a vote of 291-148, aims to reduce the sentences of individuals convicted for their involvement in the January 2023 riot, during which Bolsonaro supporters attacked and vandalized the Presidential Palace, the Supreme Court and Congress.
The vote came just after Mr Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, announced his own presidential bid and began discussions with influential centrist parties in Congress.
Senator Bolsonaro controversially told reporters that his father’s independence was the “price” of his candidacy, although he later retracted these comments, and said that his candidacy was “irreversible”.
An initial version of the bill introduced by opposition right-wing lawmakers would have pardoned people involved in “political demonstrations” following Lula’s election, but the bill’s sponsor Paulinho da Força refused to grant them a full amnesty.
“There is no possibility of amnesty,” he said. “We talked to all parties and the only viable project to calm Brazil is to reduce sentences.”
Nearly 2,000 people were arrested in the Brasilia attack, which drew comparisons to the January 2021 attack on the US Capitol in Washington. The Supreme Court has convicted several people of attempting a coup, among other crimes.
The bill must pass a Senate committee and then a floor vote before going to Lula for signature.
A government minister, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it would be difficult to stop the bill from passing the Senate, but expected Lula to veto it – leaving the burden on Congress to try to overturn the veto.
Glicie Hoffmann, Lula’s minister of institutional relations, described the lower house vote as a “serious blow”. He said the bill weakened laws protecting democracy and challenged federal Supreme Court rulings in trials of coup plotters that have not yet ended.
“This is the result of political interests between the Bolsonaro family and opposition leaders,” Hoffman said.
Chaos broke out in the House before the vote, when Lower House Speaker Hugo Motta announced a floor vote on the bill, along with other votes, to strip several MPs of their status in the House.
One of those MPs, Glauber Braga of the Socialism and Liberty Party, occupied Motta’s chair in protest, after which the chamber’s president was forcibly removed from him by police.
Journalists said they were removed from the plenary session during the uproar, following which three journalists’ unions condemned “intimidation tactics” against the press in a joint statement.