
Jair Bolsonaro and his allies could be preparing to mount a military coup in Brazil, says an influential group of former presidents, prime ministers and leading public figures on the left.
An open letter claims that the rallies that Bolsonaro followers are staging on Tuesday represent a danger to democracy and amount to an insurrection modelled on Donald Trump supporters’ attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.
The signatories include José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish former prime minister, Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, Jeremy Corbyn, the former UK Labour leader, Fernando Lugo, the former Paraguayan president, Caroline Lucas, the British Green MP, and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Argentine Nobel laureate and human rights activist.
Other signatories include Ernesto Samper Pizano, a former president of Colombia, Cori Bush, a US Democrat House of Representatives member, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the French presidential candidate and Manon Aubry, the French MEP.
They are highlighting that on August 10, Bolsonaro “directed an unprecedented military parade through the capital city of Brasília, as his allies in Congress pushed sweeping reforms to the country’s electoral system that he says are critical before the presidential elections next year”.
The open letter warns: “Members of Congress in Brazil have warned that the 7 September mobilisation has been modelled on the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, when then-president Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to ‘stop the steal’ with false claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential elections.
“We are gravely concerned about the imminent threat to Brazil’s democratic institutions – and we stand vigilant to defend them ahead of 7 September and after. The people of Brazil have struggled for decades to secure democracy from military rule. Bolsonaro must not be permitted to rob them of it now.”
In the polls, the right-wing populist leader is still trailing left-wing former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro told evangelical leaders, "I have three alternatives for my future: being arrested, killed or victory."