Jair Bolsonaro organized a parade with military tanks and the opposition denounced a “threat to democracy” | Amidst tensions over the electoral system

From Brasilia

Excellent coup plot. Jair Bolsonaro, escorted by the heads of the armed forces, attended the parade of war vehicles held in central Brasilia. After months of leading motorcycle caravans, perhaps inspired by the motorized choreography of Benito Mussolini, the retired captain has now taken his unsettling march up a notch. He blessed a procession of chariots and chariots that marched past the Legislative Palace.

What was seen on Tuesday was “pathetic,” former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said, Blow of heart for the elections of the next year vis-a-vis a Bolsonaro worn out by public opinion but apparently solidly supported by the generals, admirals and brigadiers. And considered a leader, or “myth”, by members of the paramilitary militias.

Military exercises

The units that arrived in Brasilia on Tuesday will participate in military exercises next week in Formosa, a town in neighboring Goias state.. These are maneuvers carried out every year since 1988, but it was the first time that there was such a trip to the Palace of the Planalto just to deliver an invitation to the sovereign. It is obvious that the invitation was a pretext for the olive green uniforms to be displayed, for a few hours, in the capital of the Republic.

At 8:30 a.m., a soldier dressed in heavy combat gear climbed the ramp of the Planalto until he clashed in front of Bolsonaro. The forced and soulless footsteps of the military and black smoke emitted from an armored vehicle due to the apparent poor combustion made the scene look cartoonish. This has been seen by some media, including the Globo group, the empire now desolate for its Bolsonarist past. On social media, the smokescreen fueled mockery and comparisons with the Los Autos Locos comic. The international press immediately echoed the facts. The English newspaper The Guardian tituló “Banana Republic of Bolsonaro”.

With this event Bolsonaro tried to put pressure on the deputies hours before the start of a session called to discuss reform of the electronic ballot voting system that the government wants to replace with printed votes, claiming that the current model lends itself to fraud.

Jokes about the occupant of the Planalto are commonplace. The former captain is as much if not more pathetic than the former Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori or the Filipino tyrant, Rodrigo Duterte, all three who came to power through elections. Yet these personality traits of the Brazilian are far from making him harmless. It is frivolous to underestimate their competence – and their obsession – to plant a totalitarian regime, be it a dictatorship or something similar. Beyond satires, the political situation of this gigantic country is dramatic: its republican system has gradually been eaten away by daily attacks, and this Tuesday was one of the most treacherous.

After this military march on Tuesday, there is less democracy than there was on Monday. Because whether or not lawmakers want to vote on the reform of the electoral system, they will take into account the advice of military leaders and the retired captain to whom they respond. A month ago, military commanders and Defense Minister Walter Souza Braga Netto warned the Senate that investigations into corruption in the military would not be tolerated, after which senators appeared tame.

Lula

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also did not hesitate to use ironies in his commentary on the spectacular convoy moved to the government house. He described as “pathetic the scene” in which Bolsonaro “received an invitation” to attend the combat simulations to be carried out in Goias. He recalled that former presidents José Sarney, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer They have never performed a similar ceremony to receive the troops before the maneuvers.

The leader of the Workers’ Party has denied versions of his intention to write a public letter to the military in a conciliatory spirit. “There is no letter for the military, if there was a letter, it would be for the Brazilian people and within them are the military.” And he concluded by deploring the overpopulation of generals in the government, “If a soldier wants to play politics and quits his post, takes off his uniform and campaigns, that’s okay.”

Military party

The ramp of the Planalto symbolizes by its rather steep slope the arduous path which leads to the top of the republican power. Up there they were located this Tuesday the heads of the Army, Navy and Aeronautics: General Paulo Sergio Oliveira, Admiral Almir Garnier Santos and Brigadier Carlos Almeida Baptista. With them was the retired Minister General of Defense, Walter Souza Braga Netto. The four are the leaders of a non-existent group in the electoral justice system, the Military Party.

One of the possible readings of this Tuesday’s tancazo is to consider this party as the main supporter of a president who does not even have partisan affiliation after breaking with the Social-Liberal Party and failing in his plan to create the Alliance for Brazil, which has never collected the number of signatures required to be recognized.

The party of generals, admirals and brigadiers met this Tuesday at the Planalto – where the main ministries occupy – to intimidate the deputies who were preparing to discuss the reestablishment of the paper vote, a whim of Bolsonaro that he doesn’t have much support in Congress.

En la noche de este martes oa lo largo de la semana, cuando concluya la votación, se sabrá si triunfó el proyecto oficialista a favor del sufragio a la antigua o permanecen en pie las urnas electrónicas, que es la hipótesis con más chances de victoria por the moment.

If the government’s plan fails, it will be a defeat for the military party but not a knockout. Its existence tends to continue either to put pressure on the elections (the soldiers have let it be known that they are vetoing Lula’s return), or to continue the attacks like the one that took place on Tuesday, which are a kind of micro-blows that put an end to the political regime.