The fact that Tuesday's demonstrations in support of Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro were not the pretext for a constitutional rupture, as some had feared, provides only limited reassurance. In Brasília and São Paulo the far-right leader once again exposed his authoritarian contempt for his country's democratic arrangements in speeches before crowds demanding a military intervention against them. He repeated his now frequent threat not to respect next year's presidential election. And in what would be another direct violation of the constitution he vowed not to comply with decisions made by supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes who has been charged with overseeing investigations into alleged crimes committed by his administration and its supporters.
Tuesday’s large crowds, especially in São Paulo, will allow bolsonarismo feed the myth that its leader still has the support of “the people” against a corrupt establishment. But the now recurrent obsessions of his speeches point to the weakness of the president’s position. His attacks on the voting system have become more virulent as opinion polls show his chances of winning re-election next year are increasingly remote. The wide-ranging disaster of his 32 months in power has whittled his support down to a die-hard rump, with economic headwinds only gathering force. And the personalised attack on Moraes is the lashing out by the head of a political family ever more caught up in investigations into its lawbreaking.
Bolsonaro’s authoritarian manoeuvres are attempts to avoid the twin threat of likely electoral defeat and possible arrest, the risk of which he has taken to acknowledging in speeches. For a demagogue the incentives for eventually moving against the constitution remain in place. This explains why pressure is increasing on congress to finally table one of the dozens of impeachment motions already filed against him. Tuesday’s most significant outcome might yet be convincing the political class in Brasília that its belief the president can be contained until the end of his term is a gamble too far with Brazil’s still young democracy.