President Jair Bolsonaro sees Brazil’s bicentennial on Wednesday as an opportunity to celebrate the nation’s proud history, but critics say he has turned what should be a day of unity into a campaign event they fear he will use to undermine elections next month in Latin America’s fourth largest democracy.
Bolsonaro, trailing in the polls ahead of the Oct. 2 vote, urged Brazilians to flood the streets, with tens of thousands of his supporters expected to turn out in Brasilia, Sao Paulo and his hometown of Rio. de Janeiro in a show of force. The military planned exhibitions in the capital and in Rio, with the assistance of Bolsonaro.
The far-right nationalist has for years been on a mission to encourage Brazilian patriotism and co-opted the green and yellow national colors as his own. He packed his administration with military officers and repeatedly sought his support, most recently to question the reliability of the nation’s electronic voting system, without evidence.
Opponents fear Bolsonaro will copy Trump
His attacks on the voting system have sparked widespread concern among his opponents that he may follow in the footsteps of former US President Donald Trump by rejecting the election results. Analysts said they would be monitoring inflammatory comments on Wednesday.
“Bolsonaro and his supporters have made this the most important day of the entire campaign. So he’s going to have to deliver some kind of red meat,” said Brian Winter, vice president for policy at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. “But everyone wants to know if he will cross that line and create a real institutional crisis.”
After a military parade in Brasilia, Bolsonaro will attend another display in Rio along Copacabana beach, where his supporters often demonstrate. The latter will involve rifle salvos, cannon fire, flyovers, paratroopers, and warships anchored offshore.
But Rio will not see what the president had announced would be a grand parade instead of the annual nonpartisan event downtown. Instead, Rio’s mayor and military leaders settled on the more modest display at the beach site designated by the president.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain and lawmaker for decades before winning the 2018 presidential election, has spent most of his first term taking on Supreme Court judges, some of whom are also senior members of the electoral authority.
He has accused some judges of hampering his administration and favoring former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the poll favorite seeking to return to the post he held from 2003 to 2010. That has effectively turned those figures and their institutions into enemies of justice. Bolsonaro’s base, which represents about a quarter of the electorate.
Promotes ‘peace and harmony’
When Bolsonaro launched his re-election bid on July 24, he asked his supporters for one “last” show of support on Independence Day. “Those deaf few in black robes have to understand what the voice of the people is,” he said, referring to the magistrates.
The National Guard will tighten security outside the Supreme Court building on Wednesday, with police searching people at checkpoints around the esplanade where the military display and a subsequent rally will take place.
Since his campaign began, Bolsonaro has softened his tone regarding Independence Day. In the southern city of Curitiba last week, he told his supporters to lower a banner demanding a military coup. And in a television ad published Tuesday, he urged people to attend the bicentennial “in peace and harmony.”
Carlos Ranulfo de Melo, a political scientist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, said this likely reflects a campaign strategy to avoid fiery rhetoric and instead focus on improving the economy.
Concerns about violence
But Rodrigo Prando, a political science professor at the Mackenzie Presbyterian University in Sao Paulo, said he expected Bolsonaro to criticize the electronic voting system and the Supreme Court.
The president is known for his impromptu outbursts. At last year’s Independence Day rally, he brought the country to the brink of an institutional crisis by proclaiming that he would ignore the rulings of a Supreme Court justice. He later retracted it, saying his comments came in the heat of the moment, and the simmering tension simmered down.
There have been concerns about political violence. Some of his staunch supporters tried to storm the Supreme Court last year. In July, a federal prison guard killed a local official from da Silva’s Workers’ Party while he was celebrating his birthday, and witnesses said he shouted his support for Bolsonaro before pulling the trigger.
The Estadao de S. Paulo newspaper, among others, reported on August 19 that military intelligence had identified risks of radical pro-Bolsonaro movements attempting to infiltrate the bicentennial celebrations to stir up unrest and advocate military intervention.
“There is a movement that tries to legitimize a coup if the result of the votes does not please the Bolsonaristas,” said Tai Nalon, co-founder of the fact-checking agency AosFatos. “You didn’t have that in 2018.”
Members of the Bolsonaro campaign hope he sticks to the message. Congressman João Augusto Rosa, vice president of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, told The Associated Press that he wants the president to reach out to undecided voters, especially poorer Brazilians who have received higher welfare payments under his administration. .
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