Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is cheating his possible election loss with Donald Trump’s methods by claiming that the country’s electoral system is vulnerable to fraud. However, according to a Finnish researcher, Bolsonaro would not have enough support for a coup.
Campaigning for Brazil’s October presidential election officially started last week. Of the main candidates, the sitting president Jair Bolsonaro and the ex-president of the Labor Party Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva competition is overshadowed by concerns about increasing political violence.
Treasurer of the regional office of the Labor Party Marcelo Arruda shot in Foz do Iguaçu, Paraná state on July 9. Arruda was celebrating his Lula-themed 50th birthday when a Bolsonaro supporter burst into the party and shot Arruda (you switch to another service) while shouting slogans supporting the president.
According to the report, 214 cases of violence against politicians, political officials or their family members have been reported in Brazil in the first half of 2022. In 2019, there were 47 cases in the same period.
Violence tends to escalate in the run-up to elections. This also happened during the 2020 municipal elections.
Will Trump’s methods work?
The cases of violence are particularly worrying because the far-right Bolsonaro, who is clearly falling in the opinion polls, is cheating on his seemingly probable defeat, the ex-president of the United States Donald Trump’s by means. Bolsonaro claims that the country’s voting system is prone to electoral fraud, although there is no evidence of this.
Chief Judge of the Electoral Court of Brazil Edson Fach warned in early July that Brazil’s elections could lead to more violent unrest than the US saw in the epiphany of 2021. At that time, thousands of Trump supporters poured into the country’s congressional building to stop the president Joe Biden confirmation of election victory.
Professor of world politics at the University of Helsinki Teivo Teivainen According to According to him, the outbreak of violence is now more likely compared to previous elections.
– There are indications that Bolsonaro would not be a very good loser, Teivainen says.
Among Bolsonaro’s critics, there have even been fears that the president might attempt a military coup. Former army captain Bolsonaro, known for his open idealization of Brazil’s dictatorship era and his violent rhetoric, has, among other things, filled the positions of his government with army personnel.
However, according to Teivainen, a coup attempt or success seems unlikely. Bolsonaro does not have enough support from Brazil’s economic elite.
– Attempts to seize power or large-scale violence are often predicted in Brazil, and the predictions often turn out to be exaggerated.
Teivainen estimates that even Bolsonaro’s allies in the military would be less willing to support efforts to prevent a possible change of power, because the United States, under Biden’s leadership, does not garner much sympathy for such an activity.
In a country with high homicide rates, arming is taking place at a record pace
At the beginning of the season in 2018, there were a good 117,000 gun carriers in the country. By the beginning of June this year, the number was almost 674,000.
According to Teivainen, arming is a threat factor in the event of possible political violence. Of course, Brazil has also seen higher-profile cases of political violence, such as the stabbing of Bolsonaro in the middle of a campaign event or the city councilor Marielle Franco murder in Rio de Janeiro in 2018.
However, according to Teivainen, acquiring weapons does not necessarily lead to political violence.
– Brazil is in many ways a very violent country in the light of statistics. For example, the death rates related to police violence and crime are truly outrageous. This forgets that, historically, Brazil’s political violence has been less compared to neighboring countries, says Teivainen.