[ "We face the risk of having to live through a dictatorship once
again—and this is inconceivable," one of the proclamations authors
warned.]
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OVER 800,000 BRAZILIANS SIGN PRO-DEMOCRACY MANIFESTO AMID BOLSONARO
COUP THREAT  
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Brett Wilkins
August 9, 2022
Common Dreams
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_ "We face the risk of having to live through a dictatorship once
again—and this is inconceivable," one of the proclamation's authors
warned. _

Members of opposition parties and social movements protest against
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's handling on unemployment and hike
fuel prices in downtown São Paulo on April 9, 2022., Cris
Faga/NurPhoto via Getty Images

 

MORE THAN 800,000 BRAZILIANS have signed a pro-democracy manifesto
[[link removed]] ahead of nationwide
demonstrations this Thursday and amid growing fears that right-wing
President Jair Bolsonaro—who is trailing by double-digits in recent
polling—may attempt a coup if he is not reelected in October.

The proclamation
[[link removed]],
published by the University of São Paulo School of Law, asserts that
"the solution to the immense challenges facing Brazilian society
necessarily involves respect for the results of the elections. In
civic vigil against attempts at ruptures, we cry out in unison:
Democratic rule of law, always!"

The letter, which never mentions Bolsonaro by name, is set to be read
on Thursday—National Student's Day—at what's being billed as a
national mobilization across Brazil in defense of democracy and free
elections and against cuts in education spending.

Groups including Unified Workers' Central (CUT), the country's main
national trade union center, plan to hit the streets in at least 21 of
Brazil's 26 state capitals, as well as in the national capital
Brasília.

"There is nothing more important than defending democracy and
elections," CUT president Sérgio Nobre told
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_Reconta Aí_. "CUT will support all initiatives, manifestos, and
actions taken in defense of democracy, the electoral system, and
electronic voting machines."

Bolsonaro has often cast baseless aspersions
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upon Brazil's electronic voting system, which has been in use since
1996 without evidence of irregularities.

Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—a member of the leftist
Workers' Party—leads Bolsonaro by 10 points in aggregate polling
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for the first round contest, which will take place on October 2. Da
Silva's aggregate lead rises to a formidable 17 points in runoff round
surveys.

Democracy defenders fear that Bolsonaro and his running mate, former
Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto, will be true to their threats
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to reject the results of the election if they lose under the current
electronic voting system.

"We are going through a moment of immense danger to democratic
normality, of risk to the institutions of the republic, and of
insinuations of contempt for the results of the elections," the new
manifesto warns.

The publication continues:

Groundless attacks unaccompanied by evidence question the fairness of
the electoral process and the democratic rule of law so hard won by
Brazilian society. Threats to other powers and sectors of civil
society and the incitement to violence and the breakdown of the
constitutional order are intolerable.

We have recently witnessed authoritarian rants that have jeopardized
secular American democracy. There, attempts to destabilize democracy
and the people's confidence in the fairness of the elections were
unsuccessful. Here, they won't be either.

"Imbued with the civic spirit that underpinned the 1977 Letter to
Brazilians... we call on Brazilians to be alert in the defense of
democracy and respect for the election result," the document's authors
implore. "In today's Brazil there is no more room for authoritarian
setbacks. Dictatorship and torture belong to the past."

Brazilian lawyer and former Justice Minister José Carlos Dias helped
write both the new manifesto and the 1977 Letter to Brazilians, a
denunciation of the U.S.-backed military dictatorship that had ruled
the country since seizing power in a 1964 coup supported
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administration of then-President Lyndon B. Johnson, who ordered
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force to Brazil for possible intervention.

The dictatorship—during which Bolsonaro, an army paratrooper, rose
through the ranks—ruled through state terror and torture, which was
taught
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by U.S. agents using political prisoners as test subjects. Victims
included future leftist President Dilma Rousseff, whose torturer, as
well as the dictatorship itself, have been praised
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by Bolsonaro.

Just as the 1977 letter added fuel to the flames of resistance that
eventually brought down the dictatorship and ushered in a transition
to democracy, Dias believes the new manifesto can make a difference
today.

"I lived under one dictatorship and I do not want to live under
another," the 83-year-old told
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_The Guardian_. "Brazil is in intensive care. We have an utterly
deranged president who… pays homage to torturers and dictators. We
face the risk of having to live through a dictatorship once
again—and this is inconceivable."

"The polls show [Bolsonaro] will be defeated. But there's no doubt
that he's laying the groundwork for a coup," Dias asserted.

"It's my belief that he wants to repeat what happened in the Capitol
in the United States," he added, a reference to the deadly January 6,
2021 insurrection spurred by then-U.S. President Donald Trump's "Big
Lie" that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by Democrats.

The new Brazilian proclamation follows a July 26 manifesto
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signed by more than 3,000 business leaders including some of the
nation's wealthiest people defending the country's electronic voting
system.

Earlier in July, a group of Brazilian Jewish academics, jurists, and
politicians published a proclamation
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calling on voters to "defeat Nazi sympathizers
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by voting for da Silva in the first round, for "if there is a second
round, [Bolsonaro] points to the possibility of a military coup."

Bolsonaro has dismissed
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signatories to the manifestos—who include da Silva, Rousseff, and
many of Brazil's most popular
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and respected figures—as "cock-faced" and "without character."

"I won't use other adjectives," he said during a speech to bankers on
Monday, "because I'm a very polite person."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

* Brazilians Protest Bolsonaro; Brazilians Defend Democracy;
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