With more and more incidents of violence and nods to direct action from the presidential palace, the presidential elections in Brazil that take place in October begin to recall the darkest moments of the past.
Never since the years before the 1964 coup had elections been as polarized and tense as the current ones, in which the current far-right president Jair Bolsonaro faces the former leftist president and candidate of the Workers’ Party (PT) Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.
The latest example of the violence of the Bolsonarist right-wing occurred on Sunday when a Bolsonaro supporter in the border city of Foz de Iguazú, famous for its iconic waterfall, shot and killed former PT mayoral candidate Marcelo de Arruda. “Here it is from Bolsonaro!” the Bolsonaro activist shouted from his car in front of the room where Arruda was celebrating his birthday. Later, the murderer returned armed and shot at Arruda, a municipal police officer who, seriously wounded, defended himself with his own weapon. “It is absurd extremism and I have lost the father of my children,” lamented the wife of the deceased.
The murderer, also a policeman, Jorge José da Rocha Guaranhoes –already admitted to a hospital in Foz do Iguaçu– is a typical activist of the Bolsonarist bases, strongly implanted in the police forces and illegal militias, made up of former policemen from the big cities. like Rio de Janeiro. He was photographed in June of last year with Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s son who is more closely linked to the international extreme right and who, for example, at the time met with Vox leaders.
In a Twitter message, Guaranhoes has called for “strengthening the right” and has urged Bolsonaro’s supporters not to “allow criminals disguised as politicians to return to power in Brazil,” referring to Lula.
The violent actions of groups of Bolsonaristas are increasingly frequent. Last Friday, they attacked a Lula rally in downtown Rio with a homemade explosive device, although no one was injured. In another incident, a drone controlled by supporters of the president dropped bags filled with human feces and urine on a Lula rally in Uberlandia, Minas Gerais.
According to the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo on Saturday, the federal police have decided to reinforce their security measures for the candidates due to “the electoral polarization between Bolsonaro and Lula, and the fierce dispute between the two campaigns.”
Experts like Luiz Eduardo Soares, Lula’s former adviser on security matters and author of the book that inspired the movie Tropa delite about the military police and militias in Rio, fear that Bolsonaro could take advantage of his broad support in the police forces and militias. to destabilize Brazilian democracy in the event of a Lula victory. In this sense, it is worth remembering that the PT candidate maintains a two-digit advantage in the electoral polls.
Edson Fachin, the president of the Supreme Electoral Court – which oversees the elections – already warned during a visit to Washington that he does not rule out incidents in Brazil even more serious than the attack on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump in January 2021.
