Brazil’s ex-president Jair Bolsonaro held a rally in Sao Paulo on Sunday and hit out at the current regime for ordering an election ban that has seen him barred from seeking office for eight years.
Addressing his supporters, he denied charges that after losing the polls in 2022, he plotted a coup to stay in power.
“What is a coup? Tanks in the streets, weapons, conspiracy. None of that happened in Brazil,” Bolsonaro said.
“We cannot accept that an authority can eliminate whoever it may be from the political scene, unless it is for a fair reason,” he added.
In June 2023, the election tribunal, which is India’s election commission barred the ex-president from running for office until 2030 over his attacks on the election system.
Addressing his supporters, Bolsonaro called for an “amnesty for those poor wretched souls [his supporters] who are imprisoned in Brasilia” for storming into the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in January 2023 after he lost the polls.
The ex-army officer has seen his legal woes pile up since he left office after losing the election. He claimed that he was “persecuted” after his 2019-2022 rule.
“I’m looking for pacification, to erase the past and find a way for us to live in peace,” he said.
The trigger
The rally comes days after officials carried out dozens of search and seizure raids and arrested several Bolsonaro allies for planning to discredit Brazil’s electronic voting ahead of polls and take steps and means to legitimise “a military intervention” if he lost.
Officials claim that the ex-president had a draft presidential decree ready that would declare a state of emergency, called new elections and ordered the arrest of Supreme Court justice and the head of the electoral tribunal.
The officers have released a video of a July 2022 meeting where the ex-president was seen shouting and swearing at his cabinet ministers and asking them to discredit the election system.
Bolsonaro has denied allegations and refused to answer questions during an interrogation at the police headquarters.
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