Brazil’s ex-President Bolsonaro is threatened with conviction for attempting a coup – he is no longer allowed to run for the presidency. Therefore, he mobilizes his base and tries to exert pressure with mass demonstrations.
These pictures hadn’t been seen on Rio’s Copacabana for a long time. Thousands in canary yellow jerseys loudly voice their support for Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro. For them it is a fight for freedom of expression; they see their country on the way to dictatorship.
They see Bolsonaro, who now has numerous problems with Brazil’s justice system, as a victim of political persecution. Protester Darcy Correa, for example, says: “If he is arrested, the whole of Brazil will stand still. Nobody will have the courage to do anything against him, we stand behind him.” Another, Vantoiu Neto, says: “They are constructing a lot of things, all fairy tales, so that they can arrest him in order to throw him out of the race.”
Declared ineligible
The fact is: Bolsonaro, who left office a little over a year ago, is now under massive pressure. A court declared him unelectable. This means that he will not be allowed to run for political office until mid-2030.
There are numerous investigations underway against him. It’s about fake vaccination passports, embezzled government gifts, but above all about Bolsonaro’s role in the attempted coup on January 8, 2023, when thousands of his supporters stormed Brazil’s government district. There are now many indications that Bolsonaro was planning a coup in order to remain in power. He lost to Lula da Silva in the 2022 elections.
Call to fight
“You see that the system doesn’t want people like me in the presidency. They can call me rude and make up fake news in any way they want,” said Bolsonaro, who spoke to his supporters from a stage on a truck on Sunday. “Here we realize where our Brazil is unfortunately heading, and we have to fight, otherwise we will end up like lambs in the slaughterhouse.”
Bolsonaro speaks of lies and a political witch hunt and sees himself as being persecuted by the judicial authorities, which he portrays as an extension of the Lula government. However, there are a number of documents, videos and witness statements that appear to support the allegations against him, including from close associates of the ex-president and members of the armed forces. When Bolsonaro had to give up his passport, he spent two nights in the Hungarian embassy. He denies that he wanted to evade justice in this way.
Pressure on the judiciary and electoral authorities?
But the fact that he has now mobilized his supporters again, as he did in Sao Paulo in February, shows how seriously he is taking the situation, believes political scientist Guilherme Casaõres from the Getulio Vargas Foundation, one of Brazil’s oldest think tanks.
“Bolsonaro knows full well that the streets are his greatest source of power,” says Casaõres. “With these large demonstrations he wants to put pressure on the judiciary. It is even possible that behind this strategy there is also an attempt to put pressure on the electoral authorities so that Bolsonaro can run for office in 2026.”
Fuel for Brazil’s society
From a legal perspective, an arrest of the ex-president seems possible – but it could be explosive in the already polarized Brazilian society. “An arrest of Bolsonaro would exacerbate a mood in Brazilian society that can be very dangerous because it can lead to violence and protests of all kinds,” says Casaõres.
Several thousand were at Copacabana on Sunday, far fewer than at the demonstration in Sao Paulo in February. Brazil’s right-wing ex-president is now also receiving support from US tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is currently also in a conflict with Brazil’s judiciary over blocked accounts on his platform X. Applause for Musk, Bolsonaro calls out to his supporters on the street. He doesn’t want to leave without a fight, as he wants to show here.
Anne Herrberg, ARD Rio de Janeiro, tagesschau, April 22, 2024 12:40 p.m