From the BZ editorial team
While the ex-president goes into hiding, his supporters paralyze Brazil.
In protest against the result of yesterday’s presidential election, supporters of Jair Bolsonaro (67), who was voted out of office, set up more than 200 roadblocks in the South American country.
Important traffic axes such as a city freeway in the economic metropolis of Brasilia and a connecting road between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo were partly blocked with burning obstacles, and traffic came to an almost complete standstill.
Miles of traffic jams developed. Especially before the All Souls Day holiday on Wednesday, a particularly large number of Brazilians were out and about and didn’t get any further. Most of the demonstrators were truck drivers, as the Brazilian newspaper “Folha de S. Paulo” reported on Monday evening (local time), citing the police.
According to the “Folha”, some protesters hung Brazilian flags on their trucks, and some also insulted the elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (77). Bolsonaro’s backer truckers are a powerful profession in Brazil because much of the country’s freight transport is done by road.
The previously feared outbreaks of violence largely did not materialize, but according to “Folha” there were many riots among angry drivers. The President of the Supreme Electoral Court ordered the police to end the blockades.
Left-wing ex-president Lula, who ruled Brazil from 2003 to 2010, won the runoff election for the presidency in Latin America’s largest country by a razor-thin margin. He got 50.9 percent of the vote on Sunday, the right-wing incumbent Bolsonaro received 49.1 percent.
Bolsonaro then went underground and had not commented 24 hours after the result was announced. Even before the election, there were fears that Bolsonaro would not recognize the result and thus plunge the largest country in Latin America into a crisis. (dpa, shu)