Tens of thousands of Bolsonaro supporters flocked to the sands of Copacabana on Wednesday to celebrate 200 years of Brazilian independence and their populist leader, who is fighting to win a second term in October elections. “I’m not particularly polite. I use swear words – but I’m not a fraud,” Bolsonaro told a sea of yellow-clad supporters in the conservative seaside neighborhood. The Copacabana rally is part of an effort to kick-start the president’s campaign with less than a month until 156 million Brazilians go to the polls. The favorite to win is former center-left president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who most polls give a comfortable, though not necessarily undisputed, lead over the right-wing firebrand. Bolsonaro’s efforts to win over poor voters with billions of dollars in welfare payments have so far fallen flat. But since the early hours of Wednesday, Bolsonaro’s devotees have poured into Copacabana’s Atlantic beach boulevard to denounce what they call Lula’s “communist” threat and defend the president they call “Mito” (Legend). Supporters of Bolsonaro watch an acrobatic display from their boats during a campaign rally at Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photo: Wagner Meier/Getty Images “For me he represents freedom,” said Jenivaldo Afonso, a 40-year-old carpenter who wore a T-shirt with Bolsonaro’s face and the phrase: “No soldier gave up the fight. We are with you until the end.” Of Lula, Afonso said: “He is a bum and a crook who needs to be locked up.” Marcelo Cunha, the 85-year-old lawyer, came with more than a dozen posters condemning the alleged far-left threat to his country. “If you want embryos thrown in the bin, vote left,” said one. A second proclaimed: “If you’re a psychopath, fat, naive or shameless, vote left.” Marcelo Cunha, an 85-year-old Bolsonaro supporter, holds a placard that reads: “If you are a psychopath, fat, naive or shameless, vote left.” Photo: Tom Phillips Cunha pointed to the packed streets around him – buzzing with Bolsonaros of all ages wearing bright yellow Brazil jerseys – and claimed more than a million people had attended. “Polls show that Lula will win [but] I don’t believe them. I can’t believe it seeing all this,” Cunha said. Experts said Bolsonaro’s beach party was designed to mobilize his base by conveying the idea that he, and not Lula, was going to win the Oct. 2 vote. “It’s an attempt to deny what the polls are showing and to preemptively deny the election result in case he loses,” said Bruno Boghossian, a political commentator for Folha de São Paulo newspaper. “The clear implication of this is that he has more support than Lula.” Lula, who ruled Brazil from 2003 to 2010, condemned what he called Bolsonaro’s hijacking of a day of national celebration for political gain. “September 7 should be a day of love and unity for Brazil. Unfortunately, this is not the case today. I believe Brazil will recover its flag, its sovereignty and its democracy,” Lula tweeted. “The clear implication of this is that he has more support than Lula,” Bruno Boghossian says of Bolsonaro’s rally. Photo: Rodrigo Abd/AP Not if Bolsonaro esthetician Edith Campos has anything to do with it. The 70-year-old attended the rally holding a bilingual poster, in English and French, aimed at pushing back against the false portrait she claimed European journalists had painted of Bolsonaro. “My friends in France tell me the horrible things the media there say. That Bolsonaro is a monster. That he is a savage,” said Campos, whose placard read: “We love him… Brésil avec Bolsonaro.” But Campos said the journalist-author was “completely wrong”. I think it was an effective day for Bolsonaro… He got his photo. It was a Brian Winter sight “He should come and see the people in the streets supporting our president today. Brazil has never seen such a crowd gather for one man. And it is because we believe he is an honest man who will change Brazil. It has already changed Brazil.” In a 16-minute speech – followed by a spectacular air force display and a 21-gun salute – Bolsonaro claimed his re-election was necessary to prevent Brazil from becoming a Venezuela- or Nicaragua-style dictatorship under his rule. rival “gangster”. Looking up at Rio’s Sugar Loaf mountain, Bolsonaro said people like Lula needed to be “eliminated” from public life. He downplayed a recent pro-democracy manifesto – signed by more than a million citizens – which warned that Brazil’s young democracy was facing a moment of “tremendous danger” due to Bolsonaro’s authoritarian tendencies. Fears of unrest, or even a military coup or uprising, failed to materialize during the carnival-like event, although anti-democracy banners were hung from sound trucks or carried by protesters. One urged Bolsonaro to deploy the armed forces to ensure next month’s election is not rigged. Another called for a “cleansing” of the supreme court and congress. Alexandre Ribeiro, a 45-year-old motorcyclist who rode to the event from Sao Paulo, said: “All these people on the streets are proof that the country is with Bolsonaro. He should shut down the supreme court now to show that the people are sovereign.” A Bolsonaro supporter stands on the beach with a placard during celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of Brazil’s independence. Photo: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images Bolsonaro shied away from such overtly radical rhetoric, and Brian Winter, a Brazil expert who was on the beach to watch the rally, said the Copacabana “campaign theater” had, on balance, paid off. “I think it was an effective day for Bolsonaro… He got his picture. It was an impressive performance. There were planes and drones and parachutes. It was a spectacle.” “I’m not sure today helped him win votes,” Winter added. “But he excited his base.”
