Fears in Brazil that pro-Bolsonaro rallies could turn violent

Brazil's worsening institutional crisis has prompted its Congress and supreme court to seek extra security during rallies planned for Tuesday in support of the country's president Jair Bolsonaro.

The demonstrations in the capital and other major cities on the country’s Independence Day holiday will take place after the latest burst of coup-mongering rhetoric from the far-right leader, leading to fears his supporters could seek to imitate the assault on the US Capitol in January. As his legal woes and those of his family and allies deepen, Bolsonaro called on followers to mobilise next week, warning he “does not seek to provoke ruptures, but everything has a limit in life”.

Police operating under the authority of a supreme court judge have already targeted allies of the president in raids as part of an investigation into possible planning for attacks on federal institutions under cover of the rallies. Among those taken in for questioning was a federal deputy who had threatened “to bring the country to a halt indefinitely”.

Judge Alexandre de Moraes also extended the detention of Roberto Jefferson, the leader of a pro-Bolsonaro party, who was arrested last month after demanding the closure of the supreme court. He cited Jefferson's call for "the practise of criminal acts" at Tuesday's demonstrations as justification for keeping him in prison.

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Election

Fears of trouble next week follow months of insinuations by Bolsonaro that he might not respect the result of next year’s presidential election. With the economy stalled and his administration’s corruption woes multiplying, the president would lose his re-election bid to a string of potential rivals, latest opinion polls show.

Adding to concerns about the potential for disturbances on Tuesday is the mobilisation on social media by former and serving officers in state police forces in support of the rallies. Brazil’s half-million-strong military police forces, which report to state governors, are prohibited from participating in politics. But Bolsonaro has assiduously cultivated their support, raising doubts about where their loyalties would lie should he seek to provoke a constitutional crisis.

São Paulo governor João Doria fired a senior police commander after he called for colleagues to attend the demonstration in the capital Brasília.

In the face of the threats, institutional opposition to Bolsonaro ahead of the rallies is hardening, with the leaders of Brazil's other two powers vigorously pushing back against the president and his supporters. The head of the supreme court, Luiz Fux, said the court would be "vigilant" and warned those taking part in the rallies to be aware of the "judicial consequences of their acts".

Meanwhile Rodrigo Pacheco, the head of the Senate, said calls "to have some type of intervention or authoritarianism must be rejected because it is not democratic, nor patriotic".

Retaliate

The two institutions have also retaliated by refusing to work with the administration on key parts of its agenda. The Senate is declining to start confirmation hearings on the president’s second nomination to the supreme court until after the rallies have taken place. The hold placed on André Mendonça prevents Bolsonaro from fulfilling a commitment to his conservative Christian base to appoint someone “terribly evangelical” to the country’s top court.

The court itself is refusing to facilitate a solution that would allow the administration to delay court-ordered repayments of billions of euro in debts. Without such an agreement the president will lack the funds to ramp up spending ahead of next year’s election without falling foul of Brazil’s fiscal responsibility laws. Meanwhile in the run-up to Tuesday, sectors of the country’s financial and industrial elite are also distancing themselves from the administration, calling for democracy to be respected.

"Bolsonaro is seeking with these acts to buy some breathing space but he is losing everywhere and there is no perspective of things getting better for him," says Elvino Bohn Gass, leader of the opposition Workers Party in the lower house of Congress. "There will be a big turnout on Tuesday but it won't be enough to sustain his authoritarian ambitions."