Brazil escaped a January6-style insurrection for now

September 7 was Brazilâs Independence Day, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro used the occasion to continue his assault on the countryâs democratic institutions.
Bolsonaro had called on his hardcore supporters to rally, as he battles Congress and the judiciary over their refusal to go along with his attempts to rewrite electoral rules ahead of the 2022 election and over probes into him and his allies that could imperil them criminally.
He addressed crowds in Brasilia and São Paulo, using the platform to attack and threaten the supreme court. âEither the leader of this branch of power gets this minister under control, or this branch will suffer what none of us want,â Bolsonaro said. He said he would not follow the decisions of certain justices, including one who will be in charge of the electoral tribunal during the 2022 elections.
Though an estimated 100,000 Bolsonaro backers gathered in the capital, Brasilia, as well as in São Paulo, according to Brazilian media outlets, the marches did not erupt in mass violence and chaos. Ahead of September 7, some feared a repeat of something like the January 6 insurrection in the United States.
That didnât happen, despite worries that pro-Bolsonaro demonstrators might try to storm the Supreme Court. Though police and protesters clashed, attempts to push past police barriers largely failed.
But the threat to Brazilâs institutions has not lapsed, not from Bolsonaro nor from those who unquestionably back him.
That danger comes from Bolsonaroâs political weakness. A large swath of the public is angry over his mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 580,000 people, one of the worst death rates in the world. That, along with Brazilâs still-sluggish economy and the myriad scandals following Bolsonaro, has tanked his popularity; his approval rating has hit an all-time low of around 23 percent. Right now heâs losing â" badly â" in most recent presidential polls, with some suggesting the incumbent might even fail to advance to a runoff.
Bolsonaro is seeing his political, and maybe personal, downfall in real time. Faced with these crises of his own making, he is creating another one against Brazilâs democracy, in a desperate attempt to hold power and protect himself.
âWe cannot accept a voting system that does not offer any security in the elections,â Bolsonaro said in São Paulo on Tuesday, according to Reuters. âI canât participate in a farce like the one sponsored by the head of the electoral court.â
Bolsonaroâs rhetoric isnât new â" from him or, you know, other people. But just because the playbook isnât original does not make it less of a menace.
âThey are fine with going with these democratic processes, provided that they are the winners,â Paulo Barrozo, an associate law professor at Boston College, said of leaders in the mold of Bolsonaro and former US President Donald Trump. âThe moment that there is any indication that theyâre not going to win, then they are no longer committed to electoral democracy.â
âThe playbook is the same, the motivation is the same,â Barrozo continued. âAnd it remains to be seen how much traction [Bolsonaro] is going to get in the larger Brazil society.â
Bolsonaroâs campaign to discredit Brazilian democracy began way, way before September 7. He decried possible voter fraud even after his first victory in 2018, and his efforts have intensified once in the presidency and as his electoral prospects have worsened.
For months, Bolsonaro has been trying to sow doubt in the electoral system and frame the institutions defending those norms as corrupt actors out to get him. It may sound familiar.
He has repeatedly attacked Brazilâs electronic voting system â" a kind of mirror image of Trumpâs attacks on vote-by-mail and the like during the 2020 election. He is insisting that Brazilian voters must use paper ballots in the 2022 election, otherwise the results canât be trusted. (Brazilâs electronic voting system was created to reduce fraud and corruption and to manage the logistics of a complex voting system, and has been in use since the countryâs 2002 election.) âIâll hand over the presidential sash to whoever wins the election cleanly,â the far-right Bolsonaro said in July. âNot with fraud.â
Bolsonaro pushed Congress to change the rules, and on the day Congress debated the voting proposal, he presided over a military parade in Brasilia. Still, Congress declined to pass a law requiring paper ballots; Bolsonaro attacked some of those lawmakers as having been âblackmailed.â
Bolsonaro has also directed his ire toward the judiciary, both the supreme court and whatâs known as the Superior Electoral Court, which oversees and administers the countryâs elections.
Some current and former supreme court justices have directly criticized Bolsonaroâs anti-democratic rhetoric and defended the integrity of Brazilâs elections. Ultimately the Supreme Court opened an investigation into Bolsonaroâs efforts to spread voting misinformation and threatening Brazilâs democracy.
The supreme court has also opened a bunch of other investigations into Bolsonaro, along with those in his inner circle, including an ally arrested for allegedly spreading fake news. Bolsonaro is under investigation for posting a sealed document from an electoral investigation on social media, in an attempt to prove voter fraud. Heâs under investigation for his mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic, including a possible vaccine kickback scheme. He and his sons are also implicated in other corruption schemes, with potential criminal consequences.
All of these pressures are looking harder and harder for Bolsonaro to shake, and itâs happening against the shadow of Covid-19 and high unemployment and inflation. âThe political scenario is worsening for him, so heâs trying to figure out some way to hold on to power to protect himself,â Sean T. Mitchell, an associate professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, told me last month.
The September 7 marches fit with Bolsonaroâs attempts to hold power. The question now is whether the demonstrations were enough to embolden him to launch even more aggressive attacks on the countryâs institutions.
In Brasilia and in São Paulo, Bolsonaroâs supporters draped themselves in the Brazilian flag, or wore its green and yellow colors.
It wasnât record turnout, but it also wasnât a total flop. Bolsonaroâs loyalist base showed up, and they are motivated. (There were also some anti-Bolsonaro counterprotests in cities Tuesday, though opposition leaders largely urged their supporters to gather on September 12 instead to avoid potential clashes.) The marches also showed that they are buying into Bolsonaroâs attacks on Brazilâs democracy. They carried pro-Bolsonaro signs, a number in English. Some blasted the Supreme Court. Some called for a military takeover.
It was a show of President Bolsonaroâs die-hard supporters, which was the goal. Bolsonaro is losing popular support, and the calls for his impeachment have intensified. But so far, the public outrage hasnât fully translated into political consequences; Bolsonaro still has allies in Congress, whom heâs managed to keep by making deals, not out of any ideological loyalty (Bolsonaro actually doesnât have a political party right now). But Bolsonaro doesnât want those ties fracturing.
âHeâs trying to give a demonstration that will somehow overwhelm his 20 percent approval numbers, show that he has support where itâs really needed â" he can bring people out to the streets,â said Amy Erica Smith, an associate professor of political science at Iowa State University. âHeâs trying to rally support to himself by showing that he already has support.â
The September 7 marches were also a test for how far Bolsonaro and his backers might take their threats against democracy, and how law enforcement might respond.
Bolsonaro escalated his rhetoric against the supreme court and other institutions â" walking up to the coup line, perhaps, but not quite crossing it. There was his threat that if the judiciary continued to act as it had been, it âwill suffer what none of us want.â He also declared that he would no longer follow rulings made by one of the supreme court justices, Alexandre de Moraes, who initiated some of the investigations against him.
âI want to tell those who want to make me unelectable in Brazil: Only God removes me from there,â Bolsonaro said in São Paulo, according to the Associated Press.
âThere are three options for me: be jailed, killed or victorious. Iâm letting the scoundrels know: Iâll never be imprisoned!â
Bolsonaroâs supporters spoke in all-or-nothing language. âEven if we need to pick up arms and die for Brazil then weâll do that,â Luis Bonne, a 50-year-old civil servant and rally attendee, told the Guardian.
And though the fears that September 7 might become a preemptive âstop the stealâ didnât materialize, experts said the danger hasnât passed. Instead, it seems clear from Bolsonaroâs language that there is no scenario where he will let the election play out and not challenge the results, or willingly leave.
Where the military stands on this adds to the precariousness of the situation. Bolsonaro does have support among lower ranks and military police, and elected leaders feared that many would turn out for the September 7 marches.
But whether high-ranking generals would go along with a Bolsonaro power grab or break with him is not at all clear. Experts said itâs unlikely he has enough of their support to launch a full-scale coup, but unlikely is not exactly a comfort when it comes to a military takeover. âNobody can say this with 100 percent certainty among many observers who are watching this,â Smith told me last month. âAnd the fact that people canât say this with 100 percent certainty is a source of power for [Bolsonaro].â
Brazilâs institutions have, so far, reacted to Bolsonaro, in some cases quite strongly. âThere are very good signs of that working,â Barrozo said. âBut again, itâs too close to a fatal accident that it could derail things.â
September 7 showed that Bolsonaro is testing Brazilâs democratic institutions. The question is how far those institutions can push back on him â" and how much of his onslaught they can withstand.
0 Response to "Brazil escaped a January6-style insurrection for now"
Post a Comment