Last Saturday Anthony Lima, a 39-year-old man was stabbed to death in a bar in northeastern Brazil by another who entered the place looking for voters of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvawhich meant the third deadly political attack in the country before the elections.
Edmilson Freira da Silva, the main suspect in the crime, was arrested on Monday by the Civil Police and reported that the murder occurred after an argument over political issues, but did not confirm the political affiliation of the aggressor, according to the local newspaper O Povo.
The attack occurred on Saturday in a bar in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza, in the state of Ceará, in northeastern Brazil. The ageor entered the bar in Cascavel, in the Gran Fortaleza, asking: “Who from here is going to vote for Lula?” The victim replied from her table: “I vote for Lula,” according to the account of a source from the Secretary of Public Security of Ceará quoted by O Povo. At that moment, the assailant attacked him and stabbed him in the chest. The victim had no criminal record and he died when he received care from paramedics called by patrons of the bar.
In the final stretch for Sunday’s elections, this is the third case of homicides of Lula voters. On the 9th of this month, a Lula voter was assassinated in a factory in Confresa, Mato Grosso state, by a colleague who was a Bolsonaro activist who tried to behead him with an ax and who is in custody.
Last July, in Foz do Iguazú, a city on the border with the province of Misiones, the leader of the PT Marcelo Arruda, who was celebrating his 50th birthday wearing a T-shirt with Lula’s face, was shot dead by a federal prison agent who burst in with his gun at the party shouting “Bolsonaro rules here.”
In the debate last Saturday, Bolsonaro said he had no responsibility for the cases of political violence in the country.
Lula’s campaign coordinator, Senator Randolfe Rodrigues, said last week that one of the reasons for trying to win without the need for a ballot is the political tension and violence that the PT candidate’s entourage sees if there are another four weeks until the second round of October 30.
