Overthrown at the polls, Jair Bolsonaro He resorted to the strategy that he had been planning for months. The still president asked desperately to challenge the elections in Brazil and “invalidate” the votes registered in machines with “serious failures”. Justice ruled out their demands and revalidated the victory of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Pending several investigations into his mandate, the far-right leader moved to the United States without giving explanations. Although before flying he asked his followers not to opt for the violencethis Sunday a mob of thousands of Bolsonaro supporters forcibly invaded the headquarters of the Brazilian legislative, executive and judicial power, demanding that the Army strike a blow against the newly elected government.
The reasons that have encouraged the insurrection in Brazil are the same ones that, on January 6, 2021, brought thousands of fans of donald trump to storm the Capitol in Washington to try to stop his electoral defeat. As the former US president advocated, Bolsonaro spent his last months in power weakening public institutions. From the presidential box, the Brazilian spread a series of conspiracies on an unproven electoral fraud who cast suspicion on the democratic system and flirted directly with the coup. The ultra thesis spoke of a black hand that manipulated the votes, but only if they were contrary to their interests.
Trump failed in his insurrectionary objective, but he succeeded in leaving a playbook to erode the democracy from within that its acolytes have replicated around the world. If the president of the world’s most powerful nation could work to sabotage an election in full view, what’s to stop others from following in his footsteps?
Bolsonaro has done something similar to Trump. He used his presidency to harangue the masses with false conspiracies of fraud, posing as the victim of a globalist plot and, when he was defeated at the polls and his followers have chosen to assault public institutions, the president has washed his hands of rejecting violence. It’s not coincidence. In November, his son, Congressman eduardo bolsonaromet at the Trump residence in Mar-a-Lago with Stephen BannonFormer Trump Strategist And Reactionary Ideologue “On The Power Of Pro-Bolsonaro Protests And Potential Challenges To The Brazilian Election Results”, as explained himself to the ‘Washington Post’.
global conspiracy
For years, Bannon has tried to export that undemocratic handbook between the parties of extreme right of Europe. In some countries, the anti-liberal populism He has not hesitated to endorse the now normalized strategy of denouncing, repeatedly and without evidence, the opposition for orchestrating electoral fraud. Once again, putting the democratic system in question to feed the low passions of his co-religionists.
That tactic has been replicated in some of the last big elections on the continent. In Francesupporters of ultraconservatives Marine LePen Y Eric Zemmour They tried to go viral on social media. falsehoods about fraud against their candidates. 30% of his followers were convinced that the elections would be rigged, according to a survey by the firm Ipsos. In Germanythe most radical branch of the party Alternative for Germany repeated a conspiracy that also embraced from anti-vaccine groups to neo-Nazis. The same thing happened in the Netherlands, these ideas being amplified by the ultra leader Thierry Baudet. In Italy, residual populist parties circulated these hoaxes by Internet.
Can it happen in Spain?
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In Spainso much vox As the People’s Party They have mimicked part of the Trumpist discursive strategy, accusing it of being “illegitimate & rdquor; and “coup leader & rdquor; the coalition government between PSOE Y United We Can elected at the polls. This discourse has already had consequences in Spain. On January 31 of last year, half a thousand farmers stormed the plenary session of the Lorca City Council, in Murcia, to forcibly stop a motion that limited large pig farms in the town. The demonstration was instigated by local politicians from both PP and Vox, including mayors, who encouraged the protest.
Neither the far-right party nor its leader, Santiago Abascal, have condemned the insurrection in Brazil. Although both the PP and Ciudadanos have done so, before prominent members of both parties, such as the popular general secretary Cuca Gamarra or the vice mayoress of Madrid begona villacistook advantage of the situation to criticize the president Pedro Sanchez. Three months after assuming the presidency of the PP and promising to be constructive, Alberto Núñez Feijóo He made the party’s course clear: “The CIS does the electoral polls, the INE the census and Indra counts the votes; we trust the professionals of these institutions, but not in the will of Sánchez.”