Defying Lula, Brazil's Congress Advances Conservative Agenda

Brazil's majority conservative Congress has scored a series of victories in recent weeks, advancing bills on touchy cultural battles like abortion, traditional family values and gun use.

While leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva eked out a razor-thin victory over his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election, he did not win a majority in Congress.

Bolsonaro's Liberal Party has the largest block in the lower house of Congress, with 96 of 513 lawmakers, while evangelicals with various parties hold 40 percent of the seats.

This has led to a flurry of legislative initiatives to push conservative values.

Last week, the lower house advanced a bill that equates abortion after 22 weeks with homicide, even in cases of rape.

This can especially affect young girls who do not reveal they were raped, and whose pregnancies are often detected late.

The maximum prison term of 20 years is double that of a convicted rapist.

The decision to take the bill straight to the Chamber of Deputies, bypassing committees, sparked nationwide protests.

On Tuesday, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, agreed to create a commission to "debate the issue in a broad manner in the second half of the year."

A recent survey by the Datafolha pollster showed that 35 percent of Brazilians support banning abortion without exceptions.

Lula, who says he is generally against abortion, described the bill as "madness" saying that young girls who are raped shouldn't be forced to carry "a monster's child."

If the bill is passed by Congress, Lula can veto it, but the veto could still be overridden by lawmakers.

In May, Congress overrode Lula's veto of a law blocking the use of taxpayer money for abortions and gender reassignment surgery for minors.

The law also prevents the allocation of public resources to "actions tending to influence children and adolescents, from kindergarten to high school, to have sexual options different from the biological sex."

Since Bolsonaro's polarizing presidency, cultural values have become "a national issue, a flag that politicians fight over and that wins them elections," Carolina Botelho, from the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Sao Paulo, told AFP.

She also pointed to the growing political power of "more radical" groups linked to neo-Pentecostal churches that are "trying to assert their culture."

On Sunday, thousands protested in Sao Paulo against a bill which aims to make possessing any amount of drugs a constitutional offense.

The bill has been approved in the Senate and must go back to the lower house for debate.

It is seen as a challenge to the Supreme Court which is mulling decriminalization of cannabis for personal use.

Another culture war flashpoint in Congress is gun control.

Last month, the Chamber of Deputies approved a bill making it easier to buy firearms and set up shooting clubs in certain locations -- counteracting restrictions established in an earlier decree issued by Lula.

The law would also remove fines for advertising firearms, sport shooting and hunting.