Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has staged a thumping display of political strength on his country’s most famous beach in a bid to energize his stagnant re-election campaign.
Tens of thousands of Bolsonaro supporters flocked to the sands of Copacabana on Wednesday to celebrate 200 years of Brazilian independence and their populist leader, who is battling to win a second term in October’s vote.
“I’m not particularly polite. I use swear words – but I’m no crook,” Bolsonaro told a sea of yellow-clad supporters in the conservative seaside neighbourhood.
The Copacabana rally is part of a bid to jumpstart the president’s campaign with less than a month until 156 million Brazilians cast their votes.
The favourite to win is the former centre-left president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who most polls give a comfortable, although not necessarily unassailable lead, over the rightwing firebrand. Bolsonaro’s attempts to win poor voters over with billions of dollars of welfare payments have so far fallen flat.
But from early on Wednesday, Bolsonaro devotees poured on to Copacabana’s beachfront Atlantic Avenue to denounce what they called Lula’s “communist” threat and champion the president they call the “Mito” (Legend).
“For me he represents freedom,” said Jenivaldo Afonso, a 40-year-old carpenter who wore a T-shirt featuring Bolsonaro’s face and the phrase: “No soldier has given up the battle. We’re with you until the end.”
Of Lula, Afonso said: “He’s a bum and a crook who needs locking up.”
Marcelo Cunha, an 85-year-old lawyer, came with more than a dozen doomsaying placards decrying the supposed far-left threat to his homeland.
“If you want fetuses thrown in the rubbish bin, vote for the left,” said one.
A second proclaimed: “If you’re a psychopath, thick, naive or shameless, vote for the left.”
Cunha pointed to the packed streets around him – buzzing with Bolsonaristas of all ages wearing bright yellow Brazil jerseys – and claimed more than a million people had turned out.
“The polls indicate Lula’s going to win [but] I don’t believe them. I can’t believe it seeing all this,” Cunha said.
Experts said Bolsonaro’s beachside fiesta was designed to mobilise his base by conveying the idea that he, rather than Lula, was on course to win the 2 October vote.
“It’s an attempt to deny what the polls are showing and to pre-emptively deny the election result in case he loses,” said Bruno Boghossian, a political commentator for the Folha de São Paulo newspaper. “The clear subtext of this is that he has more support than Lula.”
Lula, who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, condemned what he called Bolsonaro’s hijacking of a day of national celebration for political gain. “7 September should be a day of love and union for Brazil. Unfortunately, that’s not what is happening today. I have faith Brazil will recover its flag, its sovereignty and its democracy,” Lula tweeted.
Not if Bolsonarista beautician Edith Campos has anything to do with it. The 70-year-old joined the rally carrying a bilingual poster, in English and French, intended to rebuff the false portrait she claimed European journalists painted of Bolsonaro.
“My friends in France tell me the horrendous things the media over there says. That Bolsonaro’s a monster. That he’s an ogre,” said Campos, whose placard read: “We love him … Brésil avec Bolsonaro.”
A recently published French book calls Bolsonaro – whose handling of coronavirus and the Amazon has caused international outrage – the “Cauchemar brésilien” (Brazilian Nightmare).
But Campos said its journalist author was “completely mistaken”.
“He should come and see the people in the streets supporting our president today. Brazil has never seen such a multitude come together for one man. And it’s because we believe he’s an honest man who will change Brazil. He has already changed Brazil.”
In a 16-minute address – which followed a spectacular aerobatic display from the air force and an ear-splitting 21-gun salute – Bolsonaro claimed his re-election was essential if Brazil was to avoid becoming a Venezuela or Nicaragua-style dictatorship under his “gangster” rival.
Staring out toward Rio’s Sugar Loaf Mountain, Bolsonaro said the likes of Lula needed “eradicating” from public life. He belittled a recent pro-democracy manifesto – signed by more than a million citizens – which warned Brazil’s young democracy was facing a moment of “immense danger” because of Bolsonaro’s authoritarian tendencies.
Fears of turmoil, or even a military coup or uprising, failed to materialize during the carnival-like event, although anti-democratic banners could be seen hanging from sound trucks or being carried by protesters.
One urged Bolsonaro to deploy the armed forces to ensure next month’s election was not rigged. Another demanded a “clean-out” of the supreme court and congress.
Alexandre Ribeiro, a 45-year-old motorcyclist who drove to the event from São Paulo, said: “All these people in the streets is proof the country is with Bolsonaro. He should shut the supreme court down right now to show it’s the people who are sovereign.”
Bolsonaro refrained from such explicitly radical rhetoric and Brian Winter, a Brazil specialist who was on the beach to witness the rally, said the Copacabana “campaign theatre” had, on balance, paid off.
“I think it was an effective day for Bolsonaro … He got his picture. It was an impressive show. There were planes and drones and parachuters. It was a spectacle.”
“I’m not sure today helped him win any votes,” Winter added. “But it did excite his base.”