In October 2014, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff won the elections by the narrowest margin in the country´s recent history. The Worker´s Party (PT) candidate scooped 51.6% of the valid votes cast against 48.3% of her pro-business challenger, Aecio Neves. The PT also suffered large losses in both houses of parliament.

Each one of Dilma’s hard-fought 54.4 million votes were gained by her public commitment to continue with the successful social policies of her predecessor and supporter, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. A former trade unionist, Lula finished his term in 2010 with an extraordinary legacy for workers: a 53% minimum wage increase, 15 million new formal jobs created and 40 million Brazilians lifted out of poverty. Dilma finished her first term with a much more lackluster track record, failing to further the social gains. 

The hotly contested elections left Aecio Neves with a bitter taste in the mouth. He never truly conceded defeat and neither did the conservative parties standing by his side. But he spared no time. Soon after the results were announced, a plan was designed to throw the country into political deadlock with the ultimate goal of ousting the elected president.

And for that purpose, the opposition had the perfect smokescreen: a bribery probe at Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras, named Operation Car Wash.

What started as a low-key investigation into a dodgy money dealer, soon uncovered a phenomenal triangle of kickbacks involving Petrobras executives, construction companies and politicians from all parties. Seating behind the inquiry was federal judge Sergio Moro, pushed to stardom by the media as a kind of legal batman (he always wears a black suit), striking terror into the hearts of corrupt politicians. 

The scene was set to the heaviest attack against an elected president in Brazil, since the 1964 military coup d’état. The deadlock in Congress was combined with an all-mighty alliance between Moro and the Brazilian media cartel, particularly the Globo network empire.

The deal was simple. The judge would be assured continuous support to his celebrity status under the condition that PT politicians had to be the primary target of his probe. To cement the bargain, selective leaks of investigations from federal prosecutors would be consistently fed to Globo journalists thus creating a political reality-show followed by millions of people nationwide.

In the meantime, Dilma was faced with a clear choice. She could either seek refuge behind her 54.4 million voters, as well as social movements and trade unions who trusted her commitment to continue the fight against inequality. Or she could attempt to manage Congress by securing a deal with the centre-right and initiating deep cuts in public spending. Dilma chose the latter.

It was her worst mistake. The problem was that full-heartedly adopting austerity was not enough to appease the opposition in Congress, let alone dissuade them from the regime-change goal. Quite the opposite, last December, the speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha (himself accused of large scale corruption in the Petrobras affair) initiated impeachment proceedings against Dilma. Furthermore, the country is now heading to its worst recession since 1901.

Simultaneously, judge Moro moved further afield ordering the arrests of PT Treasurer, Joao Vaccari, and Lula’s former Chief of Staff, Jose Dirceu, under cheers of media commentators. Operation Car Wash became a blockbuster. The subject of every conversation in the country.

By the end of 2015, the opposition held the firm belief that ousting Dilma was only a matter of when, not if. It was time to be bold, and implode PT chances of winning the 2018 presidential elections. And that only meant one thing: going after Lula himself.

On 4th March 2016, the first step towards that goal was taken as Judge Moro ordered Lula’s forceful detention without charges (a fancy term for what really means kidnapping). That morning, one hundred armed police officers raided Lula’s home and rushed him for a 3-hour questioning at the Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo. The event was televised live by Globo.

Moro didn’t hold one line of evidence against Lula (which is why he was detained not arrested), but he proved his political perspicacity by going ahead with the media stunt regardless.

It is a well-known military strategy to test the enemy’s reaction by simulating an attack, sometimes called a “pre-coup”. Essentially, understanding the adversary defenses helps pave the way to the final blow, as Chilean general Pinochet successfully proved in 1973.

There is something, however, not even the meticulous judge had anticipated. Lula’s detention exposed the 2014 post-election conspiracy. What was somehow obscured by Dilma’s own political and economic mistakes, suddenly came to light.

As the masks fall, it is unambiguous that Moro, Globo and Aecio Neves are not crusaders waging war on corruption. Quite the opposite. Lula’s public humiliation was designed to erase from memory the social inclusion his government represented.

The next chapters of this story are now being written. Globo is supporting an “anti-corruption” demonstration on 13 March. But across Brazil, social movements are organising meetings, vigils and rallies in support of democracy. Moreover, several pro-Lula demonstrations are scheduled to take place this month.

  Alex Praça is Latin America adviser for the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).