Brazil is getting ready to live this Tuesday, the day of its national holiday, a high voltage day with demonstrations called by President Jair Bolsonaro, who seeks to mobilize his bases in full decline in popularity and clashed with the judiciary.
In the main cities, especially in São Paulo and Brasilia, important security devices will be deployed to prevent possible excesses in the independence celebrations, taking into account that that same day There are also marches called against the far-right president.
Security was strengthened in the capital, Brasilia, and Police began blocking access to the mall where thousands of people are expected to march on Tuesday, supporting Bolsonaro in his confrontation with the judiciary over changes in the voting system in Brazil.
“The time has come to say on the 7th that we became independent (…) to say that we do not accept that someone in Brasilia wants to impose their willBolsonaro exclaimed during a speech last week.
It was a clear allusion to the judges of the Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court against whom he has been on the warpath for weeks after they opened several investigations against him and his surroundings, among other things for spreading false information.
On Friday, Bolsonaro went further and said the protests will be an “ultimatum” for the judges of the highest court. On Saturday he cited the possibility of an institutional “rupture”.
Critics fear the president is rooting for supporters to the point that they might attempt to intimidate or invade the courts, warning of parallels with supporters of former US President Donald Trump. who stormed the Capitol after their electoral defeat.
“Inflection point”
The former paratrooper, whose popularity is at an all-time low In large part because of his management of the pandemic, which left 580,000 dead in the country, he envisions the marches in a big way: has announced its presence in the morning in Brasilia and in the afternoon in São Paulo, where it hopes to bring together “more than two million people.”
It is difficult to imagine such a crowd in the emblematic Paulista Avenue, after in the last demonstrations the president only gathered a few tens of thousands in the most populated city in the country.
For Geraldo Monteiro, political scientist at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, the president plays “everything for everything” after having stretched the rope to the maximum with his recurring attacks on the electoral system, the Supreme Court and Congress.
“We have reached a point where everyone has to show their weapons, and that is what Bolsonarism is going to try to do. They have put a lot of energy into that demonstration, we just need to know if it will get a significant number of people on the street ”, he says.
According to him, this day of mobilization could “mark a turning point”. If successful, Bolsonaro will offer a “show of force that can give him more room for maneuver” and a new impetus for the 2022 presidential elections, in which according to the polls he would be widely defeated by the leftist former president. Lula da Silva, who has not yet confirmed his candidacy.
But in the event of a fiasco, the president will be “even more cornered”, risking being abandoned by his political allies and the business world.
World leaders warning
This Monday, more than 150 parliamentarians, ministers and former presidents of 26 countries warned of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s plans for an “insurrection” on September 7, in an open letter released by the Progressive International.
The statement warns that the marches “heighten fears of a coup in the third largest democracy in the world” and denounces “attacks against the democratic institutions of Brazil in recent weeks” by Bolsonaro.
The letter, signed by figures such as Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Rafael Correa, and the former Foreign Minister of Brazil, Celso Amorim, among others, point out that the conference promoted by the president is “An act of intimidation of the country’s democratic institutions” after President Bolsonaro himself has branded Brazil’s constitution “communist” and insisted on carrying out a “necessary backlash” against the country’s Congress and Supreme Court. They also claim that it is inspired by the January 6 assault on the Capitol in Washington by the fan base of then-US President Donald Trump.
“Calculated risk”
Chief Justice Luiz Fux on Thursday expressed concern about the belligerent tone of the president and his fervent supporters. “In a democracy, demonstrations are peaceful and freedom of expression should not be synonymous with threats or violence,” he said.
For the political scientist André Rosa, the risk of violence is real. “In front of the opposition groups, the Bolsonarista militancy is very reactive, so surely they will want to go to war. The Bolsonarista side is not peaceful, it is a pro-arms group. There will be police officers on leave, ex-military”, He warned.
Rosa, a doctor in political psychology, does not rule out acts of vandalism, such as “broken glass in the Supreme Court”, located in the Plaza de los Tres Poderes in Brasilia, where the demonstration in favor of Bolsonaro will take place.
In the capital, the opposition march will start just three kilometers away, at the iconic TV Tower. In São Paulo, it will be in the center, 5 kilometers from Avenida Paulista.
Bolsonaro’s bet is also risky because his onslaught against the institutions has been poorly digested by some of his closest allies, like the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira. “The president is aware of the responsibility he has and that he will be the only loser if there are riots,” he warned on Thursday.
Bolsonaro “cannot control the violence. It is a risk you run, but it is a calculated risk ”, added Rosa.
(With information from AFP / By Louis Genot and Reuters)
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