In day September 13, 1957, the plenary of the Legislative Assembly of Alagoas, located in the capital, Maceió, became the stage of a scenario of war. It was the day of the final voting for the process of impeachment of the then state governor, munizHawk. Deputies against the governor's dismissal entered into an armed confrontation against opposition deputies, in favor of the impeachment. The reasons that led these historical actors to such a scenario and the result generated by the confrontation will be seen below.
Muniz Falcão, governor of Alagoas
Sebastião Marinho Muniz Falcão (1915 to 1966) was elected governor of Alagoas in 1955 for the term of 1956-61. Falcão, however, was not from Alagoas, but from Pernambuco, living in Alagoas in the 1940s, where he was appointed labor delegate. At the time, the governor of Alagoas was Silvestre Péricles de Góis Monteiro, to which Muniz Falcão was linked. Falcão entered political life at the same time, being elected federal deputy twice.
In 1955, however, Muniz Falcão, winning the election for governor by the
PST (Social Labor Party), moved away from the aristocratic nucleus of the Góis Monteiro and joined the ideological influences of the Brazilian Communist Party and populists, such as GetulioVargas and Brizola. The opposition, mainly linked to the Brazilian Democratic Union (UDN), at once, was reticent with the governor's proposals. As the researcher Jorge de Oliveira writes, in his work Corral da Morte: the impeachment of blood, power and politics in the Northeast:Muniz's enemies even tried to turn him into the antichrist, claiming that, because of his socialist ideas, he should not govern Alagoas. But Muniz was not a communist. Despite having the support of the Partidão, his ideas were close to the populism of Getúlio Vargas and Leonel Brizola, somewhat similar to the ideas of the president of Argentina, Juan Domingo Perón. [1]
opposition and impeachment
Muniz Falcão had 22 opposition state deputies, most linked to the sugar industry. In his first year as governor (1956), he tried to put into practice measures that directly went against the interests of the sugarcane industry. According to Jorge Oliveira, the government announced that:
[…] it would go into the pockets of mill owners and big businessmen, who contributed little to the economic and social development of the state. He announced the creation of a new tax, which became known as the “pro-education, economy, health tax”: a 2% tax on the production of sugar, alcohol, textiles, tobacco and rice, which would be reinvested in social and educational programs, in an attempt to reduce the alarming pockets of poverty and social inequality in Alagoas. [1]
Oppositionists' reaction to Muniz Falcão's pretensions came with a request for impeachment of the governor, prepared by deputy Oséas Cardoso and filed on February 9, 1957. The five points in Cardoso's complaint were:
1. attack against the free functioning of the Legislative Assembly;
2. use of threats to constrain a Law Judge to stop exercising his office;
3. use of threats and violence against state deputies, in order to remove them from the Assembly and to coerce them in the exercise of their mandates;
4. infringement of federal law on public order;
5. carrying out expenses not authorized by law.
Shooting
The lawsuit ran against Muniz Falcão over the course of six months, increasing tension between opposition supporters and the governor's defenders, who promised direct confrontation on the day of judgment. Finally, that day has arrived.
On September 13, 35 deputies, 13 sympathetic to Falcão and 22 against, went to the Assembly, with the detail that all were armed with revolvers and machine guns. Sandbags had been placed inside the Assembly to serve as trenches. In less than 10 minutes, more than a thousand shots were fired. Eight people were injured. A parliamentarian was killed, HumbertoMendes, supporter of Falcon. The vote, of course, did not take place.
Federal intervention and completion of the process
The shooting shocked the country and had international repercussions. The then President of the Republic, juscelinoKubitschek, had to make a federal intervention in Alagoas to ensure that new armed confrontations did not occur. The person directly responsible for the intervention was the General Morais Anchor. Opposition deputies managed, with the protection of the Army, to conclude the vote on the impeachment, who dismissed the governor. However, the vote was taken without the presence of any opposition member and was, days later, considered illegal by the Supreme Court. Falcão returned to power immediately to the government, after being definitively amnesty from the process of impeachment by a commission of deputies and judges.
GRADES
[1] OLIVEIRA, Jorge. Corral da Morte: the impeachment of blood, power and politics in the Northeast. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2010. P. 57.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiab/impeachment-muniz-falcao-1957.htm