Bolsonarism makes itself felt between protests and blockades three days after the victory of ‘Lula’

The transition between the outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro and the elected president ‘Lula’ da Silva advances. The leftist expressed his will for the transition between administrations to begin this Thursday, November 3, when the elected vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, and the president of the Workers’ Party, Gleisi Hoffmann, will meet in Brasilia with Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, Cyrus Nogueira.

However, the scene on the streets is far from having returned to normal after Jair Bolsonaro’s statement, which reiterated that the protests should guarantee the right to mobility.

This Wednesday, November 2, demonstrations and blockades by Bolsonaro supporters continue to take place in at least 15 states, including São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, according to the local press.

In Mirassol, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, a driver ran over a mob of protesters who were blocking the road. The prefecture reported at least 10 injured after the attack, one of them a minor.

These territories are suffering the consequences of the blockades that began on Monday morning, the day after the victory of the left-wing president. Dozens of bus and plane trips were cancelled, serious delays in product deliveries were reported; leading to disruptions in supply chains and consequently shortages at gas stations and supermarkets. Road transport is essential in Brazil, a country of continental dimensions with few railways.

In various parts of the country, police have used tear gas to disperse protesters. In the past few hours, security forces have ended 490 blockades, but 191 partial or full blockades remain, according to a report released Tuesday night.

However, some observers have criticized the slowness of the police to react, given that many of their members are allies of Bolsonaro. On the day of the presidential elections, for example, the federal police played a rather suspicious role when they carried out unannounced roadblocks in the states of the Northeast, a stronghold of ‘Lula’, and blocked buses carrying voters for several hours. left to the polls.

The protesters categorically reject the results of October 30

Following “preventive” restrictions on access to the Plaza de los Tres Poderes, where the presidential palace, parliament and the Supreme Court are located, the capital Brasilia was relatively calm on Wednesday.

But in São Paulo, a call circulated on social networks through pro-Bolsonaro accounts for “the largest mobilization in history” on Avenida Paulista. Protesters gathered on Wednesday calling for a “military intervention” in front of the Armed Forces headquarters.

“We demand to continue enjoying our freedom. We are patriots in Brazil and we do not tolerate being governed by a criminal. Federal intervention!” a pro-Bolsonaro protester told the AFP news agency.

The demonstrators reject the result of the elections of October 30. They consider that the elections were marred by irregularities and many of them trust the hundreds of messages received by the WhatsApp or Telegram networks, whose veracity is rarely verified. The most vehement groups that support the outgoing president continue to repeat on the networks their determination to “stay on the streets and resist until the end.”

In one of the protests this Wednesday, although incognito, the soccer player Robinho, formerly of the Brazilian team and accused of rape, was present. At the beginning of last October, the Italian Ministry of Justice requested the player’s extradition to face his sentence to nine years in prison for a crime of sexual violence.

But according to Caio Manhanelli, political consultant and director of the Brazilian Association of Political Consultants, the mobilization of the Bolsonaristas is losing strength and in reference to the demonstrations this Wednesday, the expert believes that one cannot speak of “a great protest”.

Out of a population of some 214 million inhabitants, “5% of the population is still outraged about the election results.” But the specialist warns that “it is taught that there is sponsorship (of the protests by certain companies), which can generate processes – even – criminal” against these acts that “attack democracy” since they precisely ask for the intervention of the armed forces, in other words, “a coup”.

Bolsonaro’s ambiguous speech two days after his defeat

On Tuesday, November 1, after a long silence of two days, Bolsonaro promised to respect the Constitution, although he did not explicitly acknowledge his defeat against his opponent. The president did not have many options, since his political allies began one after one to recognize the victory of ‘Lula’.

During his two-minute speech, the president never mentioned his rival’s name. It was necessary for his chief of staff, Ciro Nogueira, to clarify, once the speech was over, that “the president (he) has authorized, in accordance with the law, to start the transition process” with the team of president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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Bolsonaro had begun his statement by thanking the “58 million Brazilians” who voted for him before speaking of the mobilization of his followers. But the outgoing president did not want to blame them.

All this is nothing more than “the fruit of the indignation and the feeling of injustice related to the way in which the electoral process has been carried out”, he declared while condemning the violence and affirming that “(the methods of his supporters ) cannot be the ones on the left”.

After his narrow defeat (49.1% to 50.9%), Bolsonaro, who remains the acting head of state until the transfer of power on January 1, isolated himself in his official residence in Brasilia. His silence had worried the winning side and reminded many that the president had threatened not to recognize the verdict if he lost.

But shortly after his speech on Tuesday, Bolsonaro went to meet with members of the Federal Supreme Court as a gesture of pacification. In a brief statement, the institution praised the attitude of the head of state, which, according to what he said, “recognized the final result of the elections.”

With AFP and local media