Lula Gets a Free Ride From Ricardo Couto’s Cleanup in Rio

Ricardo Couto is cleaning house in Rio de Janeiro’s state administration, and that alone has made him useful to a political story being cultivated in Brasília. As interim governor, the judge has no political commitments to honor, allowing him to make changes that might be harder for an elected leader tied to allies and appointments.

Couto is not a politician. Yet that does not necessarily protect him from being used in a narrative that presents him as a possible candidate for the Supreme Federal Court seat expected to open with Luís Roberto Barroso’s departure. The palace circle has resorted to an old tactic: planting suggestions in journalists’ ears and circulating claims that “allies” have urged Lula to nominate him.

The article treats those “allies” with skepticism, describing them as the partner of unnamed “sources” in a deliberately imprecise operation. Those promoting Couto are careful to say that nothing has been decided. In market language, they are creating a hedge, leaving room for the opposite decision while raising the magistrate’s profile.

The appeal of the idea is clear: Couto is acting in the public interest, in contrast to what the article portrays as the conduct of the Supreme Court. But the proposal also clashes with Lula’s preference for loyalty in filling the court and with Couto’s independence during his interim administration in Rio. The article argues that Lula is not comfortable with autonomous figures and may instead revive Jorge Messias’s candidacy, possibly through an agreement with Davi Alcolumbre, to erase the embarrassment of being the only president since the 19th century to have a Supreme Court nomination rejected.