Left leaders at the Avenida Paulista rally divided over direct confrontation with Congress and insults to Chamber President Hugo Motta. Most deputies and ministers viewed the strategy as counterproductive, while activists were more vehement. The protest targeted the vote on a bill reducing penalties for coup plotters.
On Sunday, December 14, 2025, a left-wing rally on Avenida Paulista in São Paulo exposed internal divisions over the approach to Congress. Leaders present criticized the slogan 'Congress enemy of the people', used by some, for generalizing and alienating the centrão, drawing it closer to the opposition against the Lula government and encouraging Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB) to distance himself from the Planalto.
Most deputies and ministers avoided heavy insults, leaving the sharpest criticisms to activists and those without public office. The Boulos couple symbolized this split: Guilherme Boulos, Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, moderated his remarks against Motta and Congress, while his wife, Natalia Szermeta, linked to MTST and a pre-candidate for federal deputy, led boos against the Chamber president.
The main target was Motta, booed and insulted for putting to a vote the bill reducing penalties for those involved in coup acts. Posters compared him to a rat and called him a 'henchman of coup plotters'. Lesser criticisms were aimed at Senate President Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), as well as figures like Jair Bolsonaro, Tarcísio de Freitas, Ricardo Nunes, Arthur Lira, Nikolas Ferreira, and Paulinho da Força.
Curiously, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ), a pre-candidate for president, was ignored in speeches and posters, which participants saw as a sign that he is not viewed as a serious threat, unlike Tarcísio. The event highlighted tensions between political strategy and grassroots mobilization, without concrete advances on the anti-Congress agenda.
