Can Jair Bolsonaro torpedo the Brazilian presidential elections?

Demonstrations calling for his dismissal, the chaotic management of the epidemic, the fragile state of health … While the Brazilian presidential elections are scheduled for October 2022, problems are growing for Jair Bolsonaro. Faced with this situation, the president is preparing a counterattack.

Problems pile up for the far-right Brazilian president. The first is in the street, while yesterday tens of thousands of citizens demonstrated for the fourth time in less than three months in more than 280 cities at the invitation of the opposition and unions. They again demanded the dismissal of Jair Bolsonaro, at the same time that a vaccine was reached for all and an extension of aid set up to cushion the shock caused by the outbreak. coronavirus epidemic. Then before the Senate Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, which has been questioning its chaotic management of the epidemic since the end of April, and has just extended its work for several months. Finally, the final annoyance, and it’s his health: the head of state, 66, who was hospitalized last week with an intestinal obstruction, still benefited yesterday from an outpatient follow-up.

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While the presidential election is scheduled for October 2022, the latest polls show he is largely defeated by former leftist president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who gave 46% of voting intentions in the first round, versus 25% for the outgoing candidate. In difficulty on all fronts, the former paratrooper has counterattacked in recent months by denouncing the shortcomings of the electronic voting system, in force since 1996. Jair Bolsonaro in particular requires printing a receipt, so that every vote can be recounted in the event of a dispute. “Either we are holding a fair election in Brazil, or there will be no,” he declared at the beginning of July, raising doubts about the actual conduct of the ballot.

Trump style

A way, according to many analysts, to remobilize the hard core of its proponents and prepare souls for the challenge in the event of defeat, in a way Donald Trump. Even, according to Kim Catageri, a right-wing MP who was one of his supporters, to pave the way for a “coup” … an opinion shared by Piauí journalist André Petri, who mentions in his last article that Brazilians talk about this possibility “in business and informal meetings family lunches and WhatsApp messages. He wrote: “No date has been set, only the date. Will it come before, during or after the 2022 presidential election?”