Already disqualified for spreading false news, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro could even face prison. The former president faces an investigation for attempted coup d’état for trying to reverse the results of the last elections that gave victory to Lula da Silva. An alleged plan with Trumpist airs, which involved encouraging protests by the population, sowing doubts in the electoral system and to culminate it, calling the Army to extend power.
On January 8, 2022, radical followers of Jair Bolsonaro took over the Plaza de los Tres Poderes in Brazil, breaking into the Congress headquarters and attempting to enter the Planalto Palace.
Final intention to deploy the Army
Due to what happened on that date, the former president is now being investigated for an “attempted coup d’état”, which has resulted in a large police operation this Thursday in Brazil. The former president has had to hand over his passport. The operation also involves four other generals and two former ministers. Those involved would have tried to reverse Lula da Silva’s victory in the elections.
Marcos Cordeiro Pires, professor of International Relations at the State University of São Paulo, explains the similarities with what Donald Trump attempted in the United States, encouraging doubts about the electoral system and calling for revolt, but in this case, with the final intention to deploy the Army.
According to him, it happened “in Trump style”, with “the issue of social networks, the same fake news, which are going to create anger on the part of the population about democracy, about political systems.” “The standard would be a traditional military coup,” he emphasizes, but the idea was, after the demonstrations in Brasilia, “to call in the military to guarantee law and order.”
What impact on your followers?
It is not in vain that Bolsonaro, already disqualified for spreading false news, would have even prepared a decree to consolidate the uprising. He could now face prison sentences.
In the second round of the elections he obtained 49% of the votes. How will his followers deal with the current investigation into their candidate? The answer could be less radical than expected.
For Marcos Cordeiro Pires, they must be divided between “those who are conservative people” and “extreme right-wing militants.” The professor estimates that, as for “people who are not ideological, who have a perception about the family or the issue of the economy, who are poor and more conservative,” Lula can “reduce their polarization.”