Despite the Brazilian Military Police disarming 147 roadblocks in São Paulo, many columns of supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party – PL, right) persist on the side of the roads and cutting some lanes, demanding a military intervention to annul the election result.
“We want a military intervention because we do not accept the election result. The whole world knows we had fraud because the numbers don’t match, the vote count doesn’t match,” Luisinha Ramiro, 61, who defined herself as a political activist of almost two decades, told Sputnik.
The column that remained on the Hélio Smidt highway was much smaller than the day before, when since early morning, hundreds of people self-convened through social networks to “defend Brazil”, forcing the cancellation of several flights that were to leave from the international airport of Guarulhos, the largest in the country, and the delay of many others.
“Here we arrived after the runoff election, and from here, we will leave when the president attends to us,” said Ramiro, as a couple of dozen people decked out in Brazilian flags waved and shouted at cars speeding by on the highway. On one of the guardrails, a long banner read: federal intervention.
“We don’t want a review; we want an intervention. We should not accept an ex-convict, who is still condemned, commanding a country that came out of the state he left, a country that was almost bankrupt, full of debts, which our current president tried to improve in the past four years and improved the economy,” said the activist.
Asked about Bolsonaro’s speech on Tuesday, November 1, after two days of official silence, the woman answered: “He acted most correctly. I am certain he will honor the power of the people.
“We are asking for military intervention, and he will have to comply because he will respond to the requests of all Brazilians, the millions in the streets and those at home”.
At the beginning of the day, the Federal Highway Police (PRF) stated that 167 blockades still persisted on federal highways and that the southern state of Santa Catarina, where Bolsonaro won with 69.27% of the votes, concentrated the majority, out of a total of 26 states and the Federal District in a conflict situation.
In Santa Catarina, which has Florianópolis as its capital, fuel shortages began to occur, one of the main concerns of authorities and citizens in general, which motivated many trucks that supply this and other goods to be escorted by the State Police.
“There is an escort of some trucks at some points to help the supplies to be transferred quickly, making the supplying occur in the best possible way,” said in a video Major Flávio Santiago, spokesman of said force.
As the day went on, the number of states with blockades decreased to 14, with releases in Ceará (northeast), Rio Grande do Sul (south), Rio de Janeiro (central-east), Bahia (northeast), Pernambuco (northeast), and Roraima (north).
In São Paulo, meanwhile, the shock group was again present at kilometer 26 of the Castello Branco highway, where it freed all lanes with tear gas and hydrant trucks for the second consecutive day.
However, the demonstrators employ the yo-yo strategy, which implies a partial withdrawal when the police show up and then return to the roads when the police leave.
During the two days President Jair Bolsonaro opted for silence, his supporters organized massive roadblocks across the country and called for marches, unhappy with the election result.
On November 1, the State Police used rubber bullets and tear gas to clear several protests, following an order issued by the Supreme Federal Court on Monday, October 31.
Bolsonaro finally spoke on Tuesday afternoon and did not condemn the demonstrations.
However, he clarified, “our methods cannot be those of the left, which have always harmed the population, such as invasion of property, destruction of patrimony and restriction of the right to come and go.”
And he affirmed that the mobilizations were the result of “indignation and a feeling of injustice” due to the way the electoral process took place.
PROTESTS IN SÃO PAULO, RIO, AND BRASÍLIA
Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro also went out to the streets on Wednesday, December 2, to protest.
Dressed in yellow-green, the demonstrators occupied the gates of military bases all over Brazil.
The largest protests took place in São Paulo (at Ibirapuera Park, where the Southeastern Military Command is located), in Rio de Janeiro (at Duque de Caxias Square, where the Eastern Military Command is located), and in Brasília (at the Brasília General Headquarters).
According to a TV Jovem Pan News report, the Ibirapuera received 30,000 people.
Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Salvador, Recife, Fortaleza, Florianópolis, and Campo Grande, among other capitals, also registered expressive demonstrations and cities of the metropolitan region of São Paulo, the interior of São Paulo and the interior of Santa Catarina.
Those on the streets question the actions of the Electoral Supreme Court during the 2022 elections, especially in the case called by Bolsonaro’s campaign as “Radiolão” (“Big Radio”).
On October 24, six days before the first round, the Minister of Communications, Fábio Faria, convened a collective interview in an emergency and claimed that Bolsonaro had 154,085 insertions less than Lula da Silva in radios in the North and Northeast.
On that occasion, Faria said that the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) would investigate the case.
Later, he went back and admitted that it was the campaign itself that should control radio advertising.
“It was the party’s fault, which perceived the problem late and not the court’s. As there was little time for the TSE to conduct a more in-depth investigation, I initiated a dialogue with the court on the matter,” declared the minister.
Some letters taken to the demonstrations ask for “military intervention”, which is unconstitutional, but the cries of order demand “federal intervention”.
“The requirements for federal intervention are in article 34 of the Constitution: “to coerce serious compromise of public order, maintain national integrity, repel foreign invasion or invasion of one unit of the Federation by another, guarantee the free exercise of any of the Powers, reorganize the finances of the units of the Federation, provide for the execution of federal law, order or judicial decision and ensure the observance of sensitive constitutional principles,” explained the commentator Jorge Serrão on TV Jovem Pan News.
The protests in military commands passed without tumults with the State Police.
With information from Sputnik and Jovem Pan