The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, deepened his crusade against the Supreme Court and accused its members of being “preparing the ground” to stop him, under the premise of a probable attack against democracy.
The president called on the population to defend “freedom of expression” and to demonstrate against the highest court on September 7 (Independence Day), a call that was interpreted by the opposition as an attempt to “self-coup.”
“What they are looking for (with the processes) is to wait for the moment to apply a restrictive sanction to me, perhaps when I leave the government, later,” Bolsonaro told the official Fonte Fm radio station, from the central state of Goiás.
Days before, during an evangelical service, he had said that three options await him for the future: “Go to prison, die or be victorious.”
The president’s accusations against the Court, which have intensified in recent weeks, are directed especially at Alexandre de Moraes, who arrested Bolsonaro’s friends for having mounted attacks against democracy and financed alleged coup attempts, within the framework of a megacause against the fake news plants in which the head of state himself was included.
Bolsonaro also faces two other causes in the high court, one for prevarication, as a result of the purchase of vaccines, and another for attacking the electoral system, after he repeated the theory that there was fraud in past elections and that this situation will be repeated in the next elections.
“I say that we are facing very great pressure against freedom of expression. One cannot speak of early treatment against the pandemic, one cannot speak against electronic voting,” said the far-right president.
On September 7, when the 199th anniversary of the declaration of Independence will be celebrated, he called on the population to defend “freedom of expression” and to participate in the mobilizations that will take place in Brasilia and São Paulo against the Court, at who has already confirmed his attendance.
His followers, meanwhile, summoned the Supreme Federal Court to intervene militarily, located in one of the vertices of the Plaza de los Tres Poderes, in front of the Congress and the Planalto Palace, the seat of the Government.
The impact on the financial market
The call to march against the highest court was seen by the opposition as an attempt to “self-coup” and has multiplied the reluctance of the financial market towards the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes.
It has also divided the influential industrial sector, especially by the weight that Paulo Skaf has, head of the Federation of Industries of the State of Sao Paulo (Fiesp) and an ally of Bolsonaro since 2016, who at the time ceded the headquarters of Fiesp as scene of the protests of the right that ended with the dismissal of Dilma Rousseff.
This week, the three main private banks, Itaú, Bradesco and Santander, which were preparing a manifesto in favor of democracy, were intimidated by the government, which threatened to withdraw Banco do Brasil and Caixa Económica from the federation of banks (Febraban) , two public entities.
Vice President Hamilton Mourao, confronted with Bolsonaro, said that he defends the manifesto and maintained that banks and industry “are the basis of civilization.” Aligned with non-official neoliberalism, large business entities also negotiate a repudiation of the president’s attitude, not the economic model.
The response of the unions
The trade union centrals, including the CUT, linked to the opposition Workers’ Party of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, described the September 7 demonstration as a “coup leader.”
“It can not be held any longer, we live bordering on an institutional crisis. The apparent political inability that aims to disrupt the harmony between powers hides a behavior that seeks to justify non-constitutional exits,” they warned in a statement.
.