Alcolumbre (União Brasil-AP) will do anything to stay in charge of the Senate, even dangle an amnesty for Bolsonaro

The election for president of the Senate is on February 1, 2027, by secret ballot. Whoever gets 41 of the 81 votes controls the House's agenda for the next two years. Davi Alcolumbre, a União Brasil senator from Amapá, who holds the chair, wants to stay. And he is doing anything to make it happen.

The government's support

On Monday, October 26, Lula received Chamber Speaker Hugo Motta and Alcolumbre at the Alvorada Palace, the presidential residence, and said the PT will back the re-election of both, according to Estadão. In return, he asked for effort on the Public Security constitutional amendment (PEC).

The reason the government prefers Alcolumbre has a name: Rogério Marinho, a PL senator from Rio Grande do Norte, coordinator of Flávio Bolsonaro's defeated campaign. The PL decides this Wednesday, November 4, whether to run Marinho. The party will have 29 senators from February, the largest caucus, and treats the impeachment of Alexandre de Moraes as a central agenda item. It is the Senate president who decides whether an impeachment request against a Supreme Court justice moves or stays in the drawer. Alcolumbre, a friend of Moraes, has told interlocutors he does not intend to put those requests on the agenda. With Marinho in the chair, the drawer opens.

The bait

Alcolumbre says he has 48 votes. The tally of the parties that signaled support, MDB, PSD, PT, União Brasil and PP, comes to 33 senators, eight short of what is needed. The rest would have to come from the right.

To go after those votes, Alcolumbre began discussing a pardon for Jair Bolsonaro, sentenced to more than 27 years for attempted coup. There are two paths on the table, according to Poder360 and Metrópoles. The first is a humanitarian pardon, which depends on Lula. The second, which has more traction today, is an amnesty voted by Congress, limited to the sentence: Bolsonaro would leave prison but remain ineligible, until at least 2060.

The government did not sign on. Alcolumbre's own allies consider the pardon the hardest way out, because of Lula's public statements against pardoning Bolsonaro. And an amnesty, being a law, would go through the president's signature or veto. For now, there is no written proposal or deal. PL senators warn that a promise for later will not do: they want the arrangement closed this year.

Then there is the Supreme Court in the way. In 2023, the court struck down the pardon Bolsonaro gave Daniel Silveira, and Justice Luiz Fux argued that a crime against the democratic rule of law cannot be pardoned.

What else weighs on the chair

Alcolumbre is running for re-election with his name cited in the Banco Master case. In June, Veja reported that Daniel Vorcaro told investigators about a US$30 million transfer to the senator. Alcolumbre replied that he “never received money, in Brazil or abroad”, and the Federal Police rejected Vorcaro's plea deal. On Sunday, November 1, Lauro Jardim's column in O Globo noted that he appears in messages exchanged with the banker. The Senate presidency replied that he is not under investigation in any of the operations.

There is, so far, no proof linking the case to Alcolumbre's effort to remain president. What is in plain sight is enough: a Senate president who offers a pardon to a man convicted of a coup so as not to lose his chair.