Supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday staged a huge rally jamming a main avenue in Brazil’s biggest city to defend him against legal challenges that could put him in jail.
The far-right leader said in a speech that he seeks “pacification to erase the past,” taking a more conciliatory tone than when he was in office.
Bolsonaro is seeking to show his base is resilient as he is being investigated by federal police over his alleged role in the Jan. 8 last year attacks on government buildings by his supporters over his election loss. He wants the dozens of people still in jail for those incidents to get pardons.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Bolsonaro is also accused of illegally receiving jewels from Saudi Arabia during his presidency.
His supporters filled blocks of the city’s Paulista Avenue. Independent observers from a research group at the University of Sao Paulo estimated 185,000 people joined the rally. The Brazilian military police put the size of the crowd even bigger.
Many of the participants complained that Bolsonaro is being persecuted by the Brazilian Supreme Court and claimed Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva unfairly won his narrow victory in the 2022 election.
Some also carried Israeli flags as a show of defiance to the current president, who has received widespread criticism at home for comparing Israel’s military offensive in Gaza to the Holocaust.
“What I seek is pacification, it is erasing the past,” Bolsonaro said in a speech as he held an Israeli flag. “It is to seek a way for us to live in peace and stop being so jumpy. Amnesty for those poor people who are jailed in Brasilia. We ask all 513 congressmen, 81 senators for a bill of amnesty so justice can be made in Brazil.”
Bolsonaro denied that he and his supporters attempted a coup when rioters assaulted government buildings a year ago.
“What is a coup? It is tanks on the streets, weapons, conspiracy. None of that happened in Brazil,” he said.
Bolsonaro is barred from running for office until 2030 due to two convictions of abuse of power, but he remains active in Brazilian politics as the main adversary for Lula. As this year’s mayoral elections loom, candidates have been split between the two men.
Some of Bolsonaro’s allies aiming to unseat Lula in the 2026 elections also attended, including Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas and Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema, but other key politicians and business executives who aligned with him during his 2019 to 2022 presidency did not show up.
Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, predicted that the pro-Bolsonaro event would not help the former president’s legal situation.
“The fact that Bolsonaro doesn’t yield any power now reduces what he can do. Beforehand, we feared he could use the force of the armed forces. Now that is ruled out,” Melo said. “This new reality does not favor him with unpredictability and drama.”
However, the event showed that Bolsonaro’s message still resonates with many Brazilians, some of whom evidently favor any coup attempt that would put him in charge.
Police investigations also include military generals among those who are alleged to have plotted a coup with the riots in the capital, Brasilia, last year.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
RSS