Evangelical leader Silas Malafaia defends Bolsonaro trigger Article 142 and calls on Armed Forces to intervene

On Tuesday afternoon (Nov. 29), Pastor Silas Malafaia released a video to defend that President Jair Bolsonaro (PL, right) call the Armed Forces against what he considers an “institutional disorder”.

Malafaia is one of Brazil’s most important evangelical leaders and has built an empire with his church, Assembleia de Deus, at home and abroad.

The pastor claims that the president of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), Alexandre de Moraes, has already made a coup through censorship and curtailment of freedom of expression and right to manifestation.

In the recording, Malafaia then proposes that Bolsonaro use Article 142 of the Federal Constitution.

He says that the military cannot decide on intervention alone. That would be a coup d’état. That’s why the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has to order it.

He states that “the Armed Forces (…) are permanent and regular national institutions, organized based on hierarchy and discipline, under the supreme authority of the president of the Republic, and are intended for the defense of the homeland, the guarantee of the constitutional powers and, by initiative of any of these, law and order.”

According to him, Bolsonaro has to “put order in the mess that this dictator [Alexandre de Moraes] made”.

SILAS MALAFAIA

Silas Lima Malafaiais a Brazilian Pentecostal pastor, author, and televangelist with a degree in Psychology.

He is the leader of the Pentecostal church Assembleia de Deus Vitória em Cristo (Assembly of God Victory in Christ), a branch of the broader Assembleias de Deus movement of Pentecostal churches in Brazil.

He is also the CEO of the Central Gospel Music publishing company and vice president of the Interdenominational Council of Evangelical Ministers of Brazil (CIMEB), which comprises approximately 8.500 ministers and leaders from almost all Brazilian evangelical denominations.