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This week, a group of Brazilian lawmakers will discuss whether paper ballot receipts will be included along with e-ballots in next year’s election, not because the current system has been discredited, but because Jair Bolsonaro has threatened to cancel voting without them.
The right-wing president says the receipts are necessary to prevent fraud, without providing evidence of voting irregularities in Brazil. “Either we have clean elections or we don’t have elections,” Bolsonaro said late last week.
The threat, which echoes those made by Donald Trump during the U.S. election cycle last year, has raised fears about the former army chief’s authoritarian tendencies and the risk that he or his supporters will extremes may intervene in next year’s presidential election if the vote does. don’t go your own way.
“Bolsonaro increases the tone on all fronts. The discussion of the printed vote is just a tool to justify an action against Trump, “said Afonso Florence, a Labor Party lawmaker who noted the actions of militias at the U.S. Capitol in January.” We have no doubt that something similar could happen next year. “
Bolsonaro also suggested that the dispute could derail next year’s polls: “We run the risk of not having elections next year. The future is at stake.”
He has accused the alleged fraud of the Brazilian electoral court, which is in charge of managing the polls. The court has strongly denied that the vote was ever committed.
For many, Bolsonaro’s threats are a reaction to his increasingly dangerous political position. The polarizing Brazilian president faces a new indictment filed by both left-wing and right-wing lawmakers. And for the first time since he was president in 2019, 54% of Brazilian voters now support his resignation, according to voting group Datafolha.
Major conservative media outlets have also begun to turn against him. An editorial in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo said on Sunday: “Bolsonaro is no longer in a position to continue in the presidency.”
Beyond its inflammatory and authoritarian rhetoric, the Bolsonaro administration has been widely criticized for its random manipulation of the Covid-19 pandemic. A series of recent allegations of corruption with regard to the acquisition of vaccines, he has questioned the president’s claim to lead a clean government.
The Brazilian leader has also been threatened by the return to political strife of former left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has become a powerful opponent after his corruption convictions were overturned in March.
A study by the Ipec voting group late last month suggested that Lula, the founder of the workers’ party, would defeat Bolsonaro in the first round of the country’s two-round electoral system.
A Datafolha poll last week showed that in a second round, Lula would get 58% of the vote, compared to Bolsonaro’s 31%. Analysts, however, immediately warn that the election will not be until October next year and that many things could change before then.
Issues of electoral integrity are not the first blows Bolsonaro has made against Brazil’s democratic institutions. Last year, the former paratrooper, who regularly fondly remembers the era of military dictatorship, joined supporters who called for the closure of the Supreme Court and Congress.
“What we want to hear from the president is not about printed votes. We want to hear what measures it has to speed up vaccinations and reduce unemployment and hunger, “said Marcelo Ramos, a parliamentarian and vice-president of parliament’s lower house.
“But it has no answers to questions about unemployment, hunger and the bad business environment, so it tries to distort [the narrative]”.
Rodrigo Pacheco, the president of the Senate and ally of Bolsonaro, also made clear his feelings: “Anyone who intends to back down against the rule of democratic law can be sure that he will be distinguished by the Brazilian people and by history as the enemy of the nation. “
Unraveling relations with Congress are dangerous for Bolsonaro. Congress is in control of the removal process and now parties across the political spectrum are pushing for his removal.
The push gained momentum last week after the Supreme Court authorized a criminal investigation into whether Bolsonaro had been left in public duty for failing to report to police allegations of possible corruption in acquiring 20 million Covid vaccines produced by the state. ‘India Bharat Biotech.
Arthur Lira, the president of the lower house who oversees the prosecution process, has so far refused to favor the move. Still, that could change quickly if the president’s popularity with the citizenry and relations with Congress continue to deteriorate.
“He cannot legally stop elections as constitutionally provided, including dates,” said Thiago Vidal, a political analyst at consulting firm Prospectiva. “But the threats he makes are related to illegal attempts: a coup in the traditional sense, which makes it difficult to carry out the electoral process on election day or does not recognize the result and refuses to leave office.
“The issue of the printed vote is just another facet of the president’s anti-democratic and dangerous speech. The possibilities for anti-democratic action are real, because Bolsonaro promotes it and surrounds himself with the kind of supporters who will support it. ”
Additional reports from Carolina Pulice
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