Since entering electoral politics in 2018, 39-year-old former military police officer Daniel Silveira became an unlikely poster boy for Brazil’s deeply-cut political divisions. Footage of him tearing apart a commemorative plaque paying homage to Marielle Franco, a Rio de Janeiro city councilor murdered in 2018, became one of the most emblematic images of that election — a process that fractured Brazil beyond any other political conflict in democratic times.
Four years later, with another election less than six months away, Mr. Silveira has once again become the centerpiece of culture wars. By a 10-1 majority, the Supreme Court convicted the congressman to almost nine years in prison for threatening to assault justices on social media. The ruling also suspends his political rights.
House Speaker Arthur Lira formally asked the Supreme Court to give Congress the final say on the matter, holding a floor vote to decide whether the ruling should be carried out. If lawmakers protect one of their own — which is something they do quite often — it would create more rifts between the branches of government.
Mr. Silveira is an unimportant congressman. To date, the only law he was able to pass introduced a day for natural disaster awareness in the calendar of the Education Ministry....
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