Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro and the power of the military

»Only God will remove me from power!«

That's what Brazil's President Jair Messias Bolsonaro said on the occasion of his country's 200th anniversary celebrations on September 7 of this year.

By this time, Bolsonaro had long established his narrative that he was way ahead in the polls and that an election defeat could only be explained by falsification and fraud.

Pro-government media fed this narrative with false poll numbers, in which the right-wing politician was said to have received up to 50 percent support.

And Bolsonaro never misses an opportunity to denounce the alleged manipulability of the electronic voting devices by hackers, even though the machines are neither connected to the Internet or local networks, nor can they be controlled via Bluetooth or similar systems.

In fact, the established institutes see Bolsonaro's challenger Luiz Inácio Lula clearly in the lead before the first round of the election on October 2, 2022 - which makes Bolsonaro's narrative all the more dangerous.

"His supporters, 20 to 30 percent of voters, actually believe that the electoral process is susceptible to fraud," reports Marian Blasberg, a reporter for SPIEGEL in Rio de Janeiro.

That said, if Bolsonaro post-election calls for voter fraud, much like Donald Trump, then it could be that these people, many of whom have armed themselves in response to Bolsonaro's policies in recent years, may actually be wreaking havoc.

Even after the storming of the Washington Capitol in January 2021, Bolsonaro said things could get worse here in Brazil.

Those were his words.”

more on the subject

• Shooting club boom in Brazil: Bolsonaro's friends with the gunBy Marian Blasberg, Rio de Janeiro

• Bolsonaro in the election campaign: "A communist will never sit in my chair" by Marian Blasberg and Jens Glüsing

• Putsch threats in Brazil: »There could be riots like Trump« An interview by Jens Glüsing, Rio de Janeiro

Jair Bolsonaro - himself a reserve captain and a lover of military poses - has provided thousands of military personnel with new posts, including in government.

And he also strengthened the conservative to right-wing forces in the country.

»Brazil has never officially had a strong right.

We were all sorts of social democrats and even the right-wing parties somehow put on a social-democratic cloak, because after the dictatorship the right was frowned upon,” explains Jens Glüsing, who has been reporting from Brazil for SPIEGEL since 1991.

'But of course there was.

And these people got a voice under Bolsonaro and suddenly see themselves represented.” That is around a third of society.

“Most of them have no real democratic consciousness, but are authoritarian.

And now we're at a point where the rift itself runs through families.

It's all about: Bolsonaro or not Bolsonaro.«

How big is the risk of a coup if Bolsonaro loses the election?

How much do people still trust the challenger Lula, who was completely exculpated after years of corruption processes?

And what signals is the military sending?

Jens Glüsing and Marian Blasberg talk about this in this episode of »Eight Billion«.

Listen to the current episode here: