“The coup is putting tanks on the streets, weapons and conspiracy. Bolsonaro said this did not happen in Brazil. “What I want is calm. To erase the past and find a way for us to live in peace.”
He arrived at Paulista Street 30 minutes before the rally began. He was accompanied by dozens of members of parliament and some state governors, including the governors of São Paulo, Tarcisio de Freitas, Goiás, and Ronaldo Caedo, whom the right has described as potential candidates for the 2026 presidential elections.
Jair Bolsonaro holds the Israeli flag at a rally on Sunday. Bolsonaro and some of his former top aides are under investigation over allegations that they planned a coup to oust his successor, Lula, who is at loggerheads with Israel over Gaza.credit: AP
Israeli flags
The far-right leader delivered his speech atop a truck surrounded by supporters dressed in green and yellow, many of whom were also carrying Israeli flags.
Lula is embroiled in a diplomatic dispute with Israel due to comments in which he likened Israel's war in Gaza to the Nazi genocide during World War II.
Bolsonaro, who last week said the leftist president's comments were “criminal,” raised the Israeli flag.
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Allies expect the demonstration to show that Bolsonaro, who is banned from running for president until 2030 for spreading election lies and faces several other criminal investigations, still has political power in the deeply polarized country.
Congressman Marco Feliciano, a member of Bolsonaro's Liberal Party, said: “He is not dead, he is competitive and there can be no injustice,” adding that Brazil “will turn into chaos” if the former leader is arrested.
“He wants to try to show his strength before the Supreme Court and remain politically viable, even if he is arrested,” a source close to Bolsonaro said, comparing him to Lula, who spent 580 days in prison in 2018-2019 on corruption charges. Before his sentence is cancelled.
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Jose Guimarães, leader of Lula's government in the House of Representatives, played down the number of attendees.
“It was not exceptional, it was within what we expected,” he said in an interview, adding that Bolsonaro was trying to “build a narrative to legitimize the coup attempt.”
However, more than a dozen federal investigations into possible crimes ranging from the illegal sale of luxury jewelry he received as president to falsifying vaccine records have forced even his closest allies to consider the possibility that he would face arrest.
In January, police raided the home of one of his sons, Carlos Bolsonaro, a Rio de Janeiro city council member and his father's longtime adviser, as part of an investigation into abuse by Brazil's spy agency.
Reuters, Bloomberg
