President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) wants to use the Independence day holiday, on September 7, to give a show of force and bring together his most loyal electoral bases less than a month away from the first round of elections.
Bolsonaro and his allies have been summoning businesspeople, particularly those in agribusiness, and evangelical leaders to try to ensure that the demonstrations have a significant audience.
With that, they plan to reinforce the thesis dubbed by them "Datapovo" ( Data people): trying to counterpose official opinion polls — in which Bolsonaro appears behind former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) — with images of popular street demonstrations.
Datafolha poll released last Thursday (2) showed Bolsonaro 13 points behind Lula. The PT candidate leads with 45% of voting intentions, against 32% for the president.
Last year, September 7 was marked by Bolsonaro’s coup-mongering statements and attacks on Justices of the STF (Federal Supreme Court).
Aides to the president say that on this holiday, unlike last year, the acts should have more electoral content. There are fears, however, of possible new attacks by Bolsonaro against institutions and Judicial authorities, such as Alexandre de Moraes.
Translated by Cassy Dias