More than 200 highways are still blocked this afternoon in Brazil by groups of truckers and other members of the radical bases of the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro who do not accept the defeat in the elections last Sunday.
Faced with the silence of Bolsonaro, who has not yet recognized the victory of the left-wing candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, these radical groups, quickly summoned through social networks, await a presidential declaration before withdrawing or intensifying the challenge to the democratic process. , according to spontaneous spokespersons for the groups.
Everything indicates that Bolsonaro hopes, in turn, to check the scope of the protests, before saying if he is going to adopt a strategy of non-recognition and destabilization based on the precedent set by Donald Trump after his defeat in 2020.
But Bolsonaro does not have the same support in the conservative political establishment that Trump did. Almost all the political powers, the presidents of the majority in the Chamber and the Senate, the governors in the largest states and even ministers of the government itself such as the former vice president and soldier Hamilton Mourao, have recognized Lula's victory.
Ministers of the Bolsonaro government who have met with the president at the presidential palace assured on Monday that there would be a presidential statement before midnight on Tuesday. The Brazilian president proposed to meet with representatives of the Supreme Court to confirm that he will not dispute the electoral result. But the member judges announced that they will not meet with Bolsonaro until he publicly declares that he accepts the election results.
But the more the president procrastinates, the more violence there may be, now that the police are beginning to crack down on the blockades. In Sao Paulo, Governor Rodrigo Garcia authorized the deployment of riot police. Garcia announced his respect for Lula's victory despite having supported Bolsonaro in the electoral campaign.
Some spontaneous organizers of the blockades said on social networks that they had received information that Bolsonaro would speak within 72 hours after the elections.
With more than 400 roads blocked throughout Monday and Tuesday, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal launched a harsh notice on Monday night to all police forces to unblock them. Half have already been cleared.
Likewise, it was announced that truckers will be fined 5,000 reais (about 1,000 euros) for each hour of blockade and a fine of 100,000 reais per hour of blockade for the director of the highway police, as well as his possible dismissal and imprisonment in in case you don't act forcefully.
Important highways such as the Via Dutra, between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, were blocked. Dozens of flights from Guarulhos international airport in Sao Paulo were canceled after an access highway was blocked.
Dozens of people were forced to spend the night at the bus station in Rio de Janeiro due to blockades. In the south of the country, a fiefdom of the president, Bolsonarist pickets blocked dozens of highways, especially in the state of Santa Catarina.
There were other small concentrations of hundreds of supporters of the president in front of some military barracks and installations.
The truckers have been a union loyal to the ultra-conservative and ex-military president since before his election in 2018. A truckers' strike in early 2018 seriously destabilized the government of Michel Temer, paving the way for Bolsonaro. In Latin America in general, truckers have been an instrument of coups, notably against Salvador Allende in 1973.
The protests managed to mobilize the most radical bases of Bolsonarismo, who believe that Lula's victory responds to a pact between the Supreme Court and the former president, which supposedly allowed the release, in 2019, of Lula after his imprisonment for alleged crimes of corruption in an irregular trial. "Lula, thief, his place is in prison!", the Bolsonaristas sang at the blockades. Bolsonaro has strong support in the south and southeast of Brazil and the protesters are basing themselves on the fact that only one region - the northeast - has overwhelmingly supported Lula.
The probable reason for the harsh warning addressed by the president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Alexandre de Moraes, to the federal highway police, responsible in principle for unblocking the roads, is that it is one of the police forces most infiltrated by Bolsonarism.
"The government gave discriminatory treatment to the highway police, with salary increases, so they are the closest to Bolsonaro," said Antonio Jorge Ramalho, an expert on military issues at the University of Brasilia. The CEO of the
The highway policeman, Silvinei Vasques, is known for his sympathy for the president, and circulated messages of support for Bolsonaro on social networks days before the elections.
But Moraes's insistence that the military police have the power to unblock the highways does not solve the problem. According to a study by the Brazilian Forum of Public Security, last year, more than 32% of the 500,000 military police actively participated in the most radical Bolsonaro networks.
One of the most circulated videos in recent hours is of a young military policeman joining a hundred activists in front of the access road to the Guarulhos airport in Sao Paulo. "We are all in the same boat, we are with you!" Says the police officer to the applause, shouts of joy and motorcycle starts from the Bolsonaristas.
The truth is that Bolsonaro is isolated, even from his government and electoral campaign collaborators. Almost the entire business and judicial political class has recognized Lula's victory, even evangelical leaders, such as Silas Malafaia, support the democratic transition to a Lula government.
The military leadership does not support a democratic rupture either, according to sources consulted. Of course, there may be minority groups within the Armed Forces and at a low level in the barracks who wait, like the truck drivers and some sectors of the police, for the president's declarations to know what to do. "The armed forces are going to strongly defend the advances they have made with Bolsonaro, but the possibility of a coup is almost zero," said Antonio Jorge Ramalho.
The leaders of the Movement of Homeless Workers (MTST), coordinated by the leftist deputy Guilherme Boulos, announced that they would send brigades to dismantle the blockades in various cities. This creates the risk of violent clashes between the Bolsonaristas and the MTST militants. Instead, the historic organization of rural workers, Movement of Workers without Land, called for calm and advised against confrontations with the blockades.
