Thread by @OliverStuenkel

This is what President Bolsonaro's son Eduardo, a powerful congressman, has to say about the storming of the US Capitol on January 6: "If it had been better organized, they would have taken the Capitol and made specific demands previously established by the invaders."🧵👇

"[Better prepared], they would have had the military power (...) to kill (....) the congressmen they despise.”

Brazil's Foreign Minister called the US Capitol invaders "good people". Bolsonaro often talks about voter fraud in the US elections and says "it could be worse here."

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro is also attempting to relax gun laws in the country, making it easier to import guns and increase the amount of ammunition a person can buy in a year.

Brazil's president has also given key positions and perks to thousands of retired and active duty generals (more than six thousand, to be precise). He is also trying to centralize power over the military police, so far controlled by governors.

Considering all that, a replay of recent events in the U.S. — including the incumbent’s refusal to concede and the political violence that failed to stop the transfer of power — can unfortunately be considered a best-case scenario for Brazil in 2022.
americasquarterly.org/article/brazil…

Parts of the army openly oppose Lula and were dismayed by his comeback. According to a new report, a Supreme Court Justice promised the Army Commander General ahead of the 2018 elections that Lula would remain in jail.
piaui.folha.uol.com.br/o-general-o-tu…

Maybe Bolsonaro is just bluffing or trying to divert attention from his disastrous handling of the pandemic. Even if he does, his followers may not understand the subtlety. If Bolsonaro loses and armed groups attempt to prevent the transfer of power, it would not be surprising.

It may never come to that. Bolsonaro may handily win reelection, and get another 4 years to try to erode democracy. After all, elected authoritarians, as seen in Venezuela and Hungary, usually start implementing more radical anti-democratic reforms after winning reelection.

Since Brazil's Public Prosecutor's Office, Congress and the Senate are unlikely to punish the president for this explicit authoritarian rhetoric, the safest way to avoid a replay of recent events in the US (or much worse) would be to hand Bolsonaro a decisive loss at the polls.

A self-coup would become much harder to pull off if Bolsonaro didn't make it into the run-off (an unlikely scenario). If he does make it into the run-off, a loss by a significant margin would make cries of fraud less credible and impeding the transfer of power more difficult.

h/t to @MSavarese for sharing the info above about Eduardo Bolsonaro's comments
internacional.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral…

A brief correction to the fourth tweet in this thread: There are more than six thousand military men in the government. The number of generals is smaller, of course, though they occupy numerous key positions in the Bolsonaro government and state-owned companies.