Jair Bolsonaro: Faced with disaster, let’s say fraud

From Brasilia

Jair Bolsonaro suffered a categorical defeat in the polls held in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, among other capitals, from which an uncertain political image emerges. In the immediate term he saw how his opponents gained tactical positions and in the long term he perceived that his re-election cannot be given as certain. The ghost of “Jair el breve”, this rapidly rising far-right leader who has ruled only one term, begins to fly over Brasilia.

Brunos Covas, of the Brazilian right-wing but non-fascist Social Democratic Party, was re-elected in São Paulo and immediately celebrated with his co-religionist, Governor Joao Doria, presidential candidate in 2022. Bolsonaro was already a definite loser in this metropolis which It is the national locomotive, since its godfather, Celso Russomano, had not even managed to pass to the second round during the elections of November 15.

In Rio de Janeiro, right winger Eduardo Paes, of the Democrats, won over Pastor Marcelo Crivella, supported by the president. This defeat is the size of that of San Pablo but it affects even more the Bolsonaro clan which has its territorial base in this city, including the alliance with the parpolitical militias. Beaten in this second round, as in the first, the former captain opted for a disconcerting outcome: imitating his American colleague, Donald Trump, denouncing the same day a fraud.

He claimed to have information from his own sources that “there was a lot of fraud over there (USA)” where he hopes the case will get to the Supreme Court. From these statements made this Sunday after voting in a military village in Rio de Janeiro, it is clear that does not intend to recognize the victory of Democrat Joe Biden. Such loyalty to Republican Trump is raising alarm among the broad spectrum of the right and far right, including part of the generalate, who supported his arrival at the Planalto Palace in 2019.

During the same press conference, he reiterated his doubts about the Brazilian electronic ballot boxes and evoked with all the letters the threat of a possible “fraud”, which exists only in his imagination. That is to say: he sowed doubt on the municipal elections this Sunday and anticipated what his legal war could be, à la Trump, if he failed to be reelected in 2022. Moreover, the rumors about the polls and the fraud fail to hide where Bolsonaro is pointing. Your enemy is still democracy