Bending the rules to counter rule-bending Bolsonaro

Jair Bolsonaro is an easy target for politicians and detractors. The Brazilian president is crass, uncultivated, and is usually seen defending the indefensible — such as supporting the rollback of environmental controls in the Amazon, shrugging at the deaths of over 100,000 people from the coronavirus, or threatening to launch a self-coup. Mr. Bolsonaro actively tries to undermine democratic institutions and his actions have given other political actors in Brazil something of carte blanche to bend the rules to their self-interest, providing the justification is to “counter Jair Bolsonaro.”

On the grounds of containing the president’s “penchant for authoritarianism,” the Supreme Court is about to allow House Speaker Rodrigo Maia and Senate President Davi Alcolumbre to circumvent the Constitution and pull off a highly controversial move to enable their own re-elections in 2021.

In a letter sent to the court last week, Mr. Alcolumbre claimed that a 1997 constitutional amendment allowing presidents, governors, and mayors to serve a second consecutive term may also be applied to the heads of the Senate and House of Representatives. The law states that re-election rights are granted to...