Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has had happier days: his poll numbers have plummeted, his arch-enemy Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is coming and the Senate is investigating his chaotic Covid-19.
What can I do?
First, ride your faithful blue and lead a massive group of far-right cyclists, just like you did last Sunday.
Second, a horse to release a demonstration of conservative farmers, as he intends to do on Saturday.
The organizers of the rally called on conservative “soldiers” to protest the “madness” of home care measures in the event of a pandemic and the Brazilian Supreme Court, which allowed the local government to impose such policies despite Bolsonaro’s objections.
Thirdly, “marches for the freedom of the Christian family” are also planned in some 100 locations this weekend, evoking a motion in favor of a 1964 coup that installed a 21-year-old military dictatorship in Brazil – for which Bolsonaro, a former captain army, is brazenly nostalgic.
Faced with threats on several fronts, the guy nicknamed the “Trump Tropical” has devised a familiar scenario: energizing his base with gigantic polarizing rallies that tend to offend critics as intensely as die-hard fans.
The question is whether it functions as a political strategy, before embarking on a complicated re-election crusade next year.
“It’s going on for a while. So she plays at its core,” said Debora Messenberg, a sociologist at the University of Brasilia.
“Bolsonaro, like all far-right politicians, will have to keep his main supporters on a war footing. Far-right leaders live for war,” he told the AFP.
– Pandemic probe –
Bolsonaro turns out to be vulnerable to the pandemic.
The Senate opened an investigation last month into the handling of the Covid-19 government, which killed another 430,000 people in Brazil, in the United States alone.
Bolsonaro called Thursday’s investigation “crime” and “other good people are being investigated through villains. “
Broadcast live, audiences highlight the administration’s pandemic policies, which come with the attack on blockades, promoting the ineffectiveness of chloroquine and rejecting now-indispensable vaccine offerings.
“It’s like a parade of other people who remind Brazilians why the death toll is so high,” said Brian Winter, vice president of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas.
“He loves the 2022 race, because it will remind him of the deastrous control and denial he has embarked on. “
Then there is the return of former President Lula, who regained the right to run when the Supreme Court oversteorated his convictions for corruption in March.
This established a possible election in October 2022 between Bolsonaro, 66, and the leftist of 75 years (2003-2010).
The latest survey, published Wednesday through the Datafolha corporation, provides Lula with 55% of the vote versus 32% of Bolsonaro in a hypothetical run-off.
Worse for the far-right incumbent: its long-unwavering approval rate with a minimum of 30%, reached an all-time low of 24%.
– Do you follow Trump’s example? –
This is one more explanation of why Bolsonaro gathers its base, the fervor of which turns out to be diminishing a little.
“The base still supports him, however, they are a little disappointed and out of their minds for reasons,” Winter said.
These come with the recent dismissal of ultra-conservative foreign minister Ernesto Araujo and Bolsonaro’s new pragmatic alliance with the “Centrao”, a tough organization of pig-hungry parties hated by the electorate eager to “drain the swamp” in Brasilia.
But a challenge for Bolsonaro, revitalizing its base also risks further alienating average elegance and the business sector, which voted overwhelmingly for it in 2018 but are disenchanted.
If all else fails, Bolsonaro is in a position to take a page from Donald Trump’s playbook.
Like the former US president, his political model, Bolsonaro criticized the integrity of the upcoming elections, attacking evidence of Brazil’s electronic voting formula.
“You’ve already made it clear that you’ll run if you lose,” Andre Rehbein Sathler said of the Congresso em Foco news website.
“Obviously he’s following Trump’s script. “
Bolsonaro is accused of threatening Brazil’s democratic institutions.
He boasts of the help of his “army”, and hard-line supporters in each and every one of the rallies urge the army to organize an intervention to give it strength to rule by decree.