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Brazil is going through an unprecedented institutional crisis. The foundations of the entire Sixth Republic – called the “New Republic” by its defenders, even though it is already quite old – are being profoundly shaken. Since 1988, the entire Brazilian political system has rested on the idea of the “sanctity” of the Federal Constitution and the “infallibility” of the Federal Supreme Court, as well as its supposedly “moderating” role of democratic institutions.

Now, all of these dogmas finally seem to be facing the test of reality. The crisis involving Alexandre de Moraes, André Mendonça, and the Banco Master case is the spark igniting a broader crisis of confidence in Brazil’s constitutional institutions and in their role as guardians of the democratic order.

Messages found on Daniel Vorcaro’s phone placed the former banker in close contact with various figures of political power. In Moraes’s case, the Federal Police found material concerning the minister’s relationship with Vorcaro and a R$131 million contract between Banco Master and the law firm of his wife, Viviane Barci de Moraes. According to the investigation, the minister himself allegedly made changes to the document before it was signed.

The situation became even more extraordinary when the material came under examination by André Mendonça, the Supreme Court judge assigned to oversee the case. Mendonça lifted the confidentiality of investigative documents and forwarded evidence to the Office of the Prosecutor General (PGR). Moraes responded by requesting that Mendonça himself be investigated for abuse of authority. Edson Fachin, president of the Supreme Court, was forced to intervene, withdrawing the request from the fake-news investigation and demanding explanations from both justices.

It is difficult to find a more precise image of Brazil’s institutional confusion.

The Federal Supreme Court spent decades expanding its influence over national political life. Electoral issues, freedom of expression, political parties, demonstrations, criminal investigations, and conflicts between the branches of government progressively came under the authority of the justices. This process was often justified by the alleged “need” to protect democracy and preserve the Constitution.

The result, however, was the creation of an institution with extraordinary political powers and without any mechanisms of external oversight. Now the problem has emerged within the Court itself.

Mendonça questions procedures related to the investigation involving Moraes. Moraes calls for Mendonça to be investigated. The Office of the Prosecutor General questions Mendonça’s conduct, while the prosecutor general himself, Paulo Gonet, is mentioned in material seized by the Federal Police. Fachin must manage the conflict between his fellow judges while attempting to preserve the authority of the Court.

It is not necessary to determine in advance who is right in each of these disputes in order to understand the magnitude of the problem. An institution whose primary function is to safeguard the Constitution loses its legitimacy when it itself becomes the center of a political scandal. In the end, more important than the legal case itself is the collapse of the abstract values that until now had sustained the legitimacy of the Supreme Court as a virtually “sacred” institution.

What was believed to be “holy” has revealed itself to be deeply tainted. And now millions of faithful followers of the “New Republic” religion are confused, realizing that they placed their hopes in a false god.

The 1988 Constitution created an extremely complex political order in which the judiciary acquired enormous capacity to interfere in decisions that, in other systems, would be resolved primarily through the political process. Congress, in turn, became dependent on unstable coalitions, budgetary negotiations, and political parties increasingly incapable of representing coherent national projects. The Executive administers this structure through circumstantial alliances, lacking powers that would be indispensable to it under virtually any other presidential system.

The result is a state in which no one seems to possess sufficient authority to definitively resolve conflicts – except, of course, the judiciary itself, which governs itself, judges itself, and protects itself.

Now, this entire system is collapsing before our eyes. The Sixth Republic is in crisis. But the problem is that the crisis of the Sixth Republic does not automatically mean the birth of a Seventh.

Political regimes do not simply disappear because they have lost legitimacy; they can survive for a long time in a state of decomposition, sustained by the absence of an organized alternative. This is precisely Brazil’s situation. The 1988 order no longer seems capable of producing consensus, authority, or trust, but there is still no political, social, or intellectual force sufficiently organized to formulate and impose a new national pact. There is plenty of discontent, but no project.

For this reason, the most likely scenario for the coming years is not an orderly transition to a Seventh Republic, but a prolonged period of authority vacuum. Institutions will continue to function formally, elections will continue to be held, and the Constitution will remain in force, but their ability to generate voluntary compliance and political consensus will tend to decline. Each crisis will be provisionally resolved only to produce the next crisis; each conflict between the branches of government will be managed without ever being truly settled; and each institution will attempt to expand its own sphere of power as the authority of the system as a whole deteriorates.

It will not be a “dignified end.” We will not witness a spectacular collapse, with tanks in the streets or the immediate suspension of the Constitution. Instead, it will be a painful, slow, agonizing death: the gradual transformation of the Brazilian state into a system incapable of resolving its own conflicts.

The Sixth Republic, therefore, is collapsing without the Seventh Republic even being on the horizon. Brazil does not appear to possess, at this moment, the critical mass necessary to establish a (truly) New Republic.