09/07/2021 18:19
Clarín.com
World
Updated 09/07/2021 18:19
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro intensified his attacks on the Supreme Court on Tuesday and sent a message to "those who want to get him out of Brasilia"
by stating that he will not go to prison and "only God"
will
remove
him from the Presidency.
"I want to say
to those who want to make me ineligible in Brasilia
: only God gets me out of there," he said in an inflamed speech during a massive demonstration on São Paulo's Avenida Paulista.
Bolsonaro, a captain in the Army Reserve and nostalgic for the military dictatorship, reaffirmed that, given the current scenario in the country, he only has three options:
"prison, death or victory."
"(I want) to tell the scoundrels that I will never be imprisoned.
My life belongs to God but the victory belongs to all of us,"
completed the far-right leader.
Jair Bolsonaro in San Pablo.
AP Photo
Bolsonaro made direct criticisms of the Supreme Court magistrate Alexandre de Moraes,
responsible for the process
against the dissemination of false news and for which the president is being investigated.
Again the "fraud"
He also charged the president of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Luis Roberto Barroso,
by criticizing the electronic voting system
and defending a mixed system that includes the printed vote.
"
I cannot participate in a farce like this
, sponsored by the president of the Superior Electoral Tribunal," he declared, despite the fact that Brazil's electronic voting system, adopted in 1996, has not been the subject of a single fraud complaint since then.
Bolsonaro's speech was accompanied
by thousands of people,
the vast majority without wearing masks, who occupied the main avenue of the capital of São Paulo, as well as its surroundings and demanded, under shouts of "myth", a military intervention and the closure of the Supreme Court.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia.
Photo Xinhua
"What we want is a true clean-up
of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) and the only way to do it is through the Armed Forces," one of the protesters, Eri dos Santos, told Efe, holding a banner advocating , in English, for an Army intervention.
"The action of the STF is regrettable,
they are confusing the powers and want to govern Brazil,
" added the pharmacist Betina Medeiros.
In the framework of Independence Day and in the midst of an atmosphere nostalgic for the dictatorship, the protesters also called for Bolsonaro to lead the country to
"a new independence from Brazil."
Show of strength
Bolsonaro thus sought a show of force at a time when
his popularity is declining
, with approval ranging between 25% and 30%, and polls predict a victory for former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his main political antagonist, in next year's elections.
The demonstrations also take place after
various setbacks
both in the judicial and legislative spheres that have generated strong institutional tensions and that the opposition fears could lead to the "coup" that the most radical conservatives demand of the president.
These tensions have grown since last year,
exacerbated now by the distrust
sown by Bolsonaro in the electronic voting system that Brazil adopted in 1996, which since then has not been the subject of a single complaint of irregularities, but which, according to the president, favors the traps.
Following in the footsteps of former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021), Bolsonaro
has fanned the specter of fraud
in the face of the 2022 presidential elections to anticipate an eventual and possible triumph of Lula, who this year returned to the political arena after the annulment of his corruption convictions for a procedural error.
Source: EFE and AFP
PB
Look also
The dispute between Bolsonaro and the Court: from Lula's empowerment to the investigations against him
Jair Bolsonaro filled the streets and attacked the members of the Court in the acts of Brasilia and São Paulo
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