There are wide bands of the Brazilian middle and upper classes that have always looked towards the United States. With criticism or admiration, “Uncle Sam” is present. Today, however, it is President Jair Bolsonaro who is creating in the Federative Republic of Brazil in 2022 an environment similar to that in the United States of America in 2020: the presidential elections to be held in October may be fraudulent, he says.
A tactic that is too reminiscent of that of Donald Trump in the months before Joe Biden’s victory in November 2020. Will Bolsonaro dare to imitate Trump to the last consequences and refuse to recognize the result, as the former US president did? in those hectic weeks?
It is not ruled out at all. Bolsonaro summoned some 40 foreign ambassadors to a meeting at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia last Monday. And there, with a soft and calm tone that drew attention to being unusual for him, the head of state of the fifth largest country in the world developed his arguments, some of them already known: the electronic voting system runs the risk of being hacked and the Federal Supreme Court (STF) works against him, as well as the Supreme Electoral Court (STE).
The president focused his criticism on ministers Alexandre de Moraes, Edson Fachin and Luís Roberto Barroso. Fachin is the current president of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court). Barroso presided over the electoral court, and Moraes is expected to command it during the elections, the first round of which will be held on October 2. Polls show Bolsonaro up to 19 points behind former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the center-left Workers’ Party (PT).
“Mr. Barroso, like Mr. Fachin, have begun to go around the world criticizing me, as if they were preparing a coup for the elections,” Bolsonaro assured foreign diplomats, among whom was not the neighboring Argentina, with whose Peronist government it has almost no relationship because it is considered “communist”.
“I travel all over Brazil, I am well received everywhere. I walk among the people. On the other side, no. They don’t even eat in the hotel restaurant, because they are not accepted. The people who owe them favors do not want a transparent electoral system. They preach all the time that, after announcing the result of the elections, their heads of state must recognize the result of the elections,” the president added.
“The system is completely vulnerable,” Bolsonaro has insisted in reference to the electronic voting system, which has been operating in the country since 1996 without any problems. The president, a former military man, has between his eyebrows the realization of a vote count by the Armed Forces. The TSE rejected that idea weeks ago, and Bolsonaro has threatened a private audit of the collegiate body.
“Why does a group of three people only want to bring instability to our country, without taking anything from the suggestions of the Armed Forces?” Bolsonaro continued, attacking Moraes, Fachin and Barroso.
There are too many similarities between the words and attitudes of Trump and Bolsonaro in their respective bids for re-election. In the United States, the Capitol, seat of Congress, was attacked by a mob two weeks before Biden took office. Two ambassadors spoke, on condition of anonymity, with ‘Folha de Sao Paulo’ and defined Bolsonaro’s words as a “Trumpist tactic”, although they do not predict the same damage capacity as Trump for the president.
Bolsonaro’s incendiary statements come in a context that is already heated. A supporter of the PT was assassinated days ago during his birthday by a follower of Bolsonaro, and the Federal Police asked the state police to reinforce the security of the candidates during the electoral campaign. Bolsonaro himself was stabbed during the campaign that brought him to the presidency in 2018.
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