Jair Bolsonaro pushed Brazil to the brink before exiting | In a brief message, Lula avoided openly acknowledging da Silva’s victory.

From Sao Paulo

Jair Bolsonaro decided to push Brazil to the limit. Then it took almost 48 hours to talk His election loss last SundayAnd it did so when the country was in maximum tension Road blockOpening orders, demands for military intervention by protesters and accusations of fraud. The president, who openly acknowledged the victory of Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, opened the crisis without saying what was expected of him. And the beginning of the transition process so that the change of command by the President takes place on January 1st.

Road closures

Bolsonaro’s statements came as roadblocks swelled in the country as of Sunday night, with a core in the country’s southeast and south, led by wild Bolsonaroistas with truckers and Brazilian flags.. The Federal Road Police reported that the number of roadblocks on Tuesday morning stood at 271, thus maintaining the level of the previous day, but now with the order of the Federal Supreme Court to lift the cuts. Bolsonaro and many other governors, such as Rodrigo García, followed the order of São Paulo: “The elections are over, we live in a democratic country, São Paulo respects the results of the elections, and no demonstration will set democracy back in Brazil”.

Like Bolsonarianism’s hard social base, the climate in the protests was tense and sometimes confrontational. “We are not going to accept that a thief is ruling our country, we are not going to let him rule, we need military intervention.”, for example, said one of the demonstrators on the outskirts of São Paulo. “South America and North America are contaminated by communism, we want freedom, we don’t want a thief in power,” said another, next to him, as military police bordered the protests.

Bolsonaro speaks

Bolsonaro, in this context, chose to take the floor and stay gray: Without mentioning Lula’s victory, or contesting the results, Lockes said, acknowledging the “anger and sense of injustice at how the electoral process was conducted” fueling the protests, but denouncing the “restriction of the right to come and go”. “I have always played within the four lines of the Constitution” and promised to “fulfill all the dictates of our Constitution,” phrases that showed between the lines that he would not try to ignore the decision. or inhibit the process of change.

Change is progressing

Monday, some media, etc BalloonReported on the first contacts between the government and the electorate. Such was the exchange of information between the current Vice President Hamilton Mauro And the new vice president was voted in on Sunday. Gerardo Alchem. A call between the Speaker of the Civil House was also recorded. Cyrus Nogueira and Lula’s campaign manager, Edinho Silva. Nogueira confirmed after Bolsonaro’s press conference that he had been authorized by the president to “start the transition process.”

Leader of the Labor Party, Gleisi Hoffman, for its part, announced on Tuesday that Alkmin is the coordinator of the replacement team and that the teams will begin work on Thursday in the capital Brasilia. Less well known than the sieges, those statements offered some reassurance: “We believe in Brazilian companies. The loser can cry, what can’t be done is destabilize the country, the economy, the Brazilian people, because that’s a crime”Hoffman said.

Notices of change were issued as international recognition of elections was consolidated and completed. Communications congratulating Lula on his victory were swift and decisive: first from the continent’s progressive governments, then from the White House, a group of European and Latin American governments, and even the president of China. Xi Jinping. The meeting followed the news Alberto FernandezPhone calls with Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron One Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Lula’s victory was established amid Bolsonaro’s silence internationally, taking the president’s oxygen to embark on a grand adventure.

Turbulent months

The 48 hours after the election made it clear that Bolsonaro chose to create a crisis in the face of his defeat. A few words of pre-approval of the decision or a call to silence would have been called A scene that hasn’t finished decompressing yet. The president’s strategy seems to maintain a tension that allows him to mobilize his hardline social base, establishing the idea that an election may have been rigged, which overlaps with reports that have accumulated over the months that he has questioned the organization of the polls. and Supreme Election Tribunal.

Until January 1 arrives and Lula dons the presidential mantle, the facts await what will be months of difficult transition. Bolsonaro was defeated, becoming the first president not to be re-elected since the return of democracy, but he was less than two points ahead of Lula, with seven million more votes than in his first round, and he wants to capitalize on that strength. Test the exit from the authority by invoking a method Trumpeter. Donald Trump’s post-White House trajectory, with a video endorsing him again for a runoff, may indicate that setting the fire before exiting is a good option.

These events once again highlight the crisis in which the president has led Brazil during his four years in office and the need for democratic reform. During Lula’s campaign that was the flagship of the democratic divide or Bolsonaro, who cobbled together a broad, heterogeneous coalition. Dilma Rousseffor partners joining in the second round Simon Debbett. Now in Bolsonaro’s last two months, the transition process, the potential upheavals, and then the big challenge: transforming the country, not just based on inequality, but against Social breakdown.