Brazil’s Bolsonaro supporters rally in Rio By Reuters

Rodrigo Viga Gaier, Luana Maria Benedito

RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro rallied thousands of supporters in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday as he looks to boost his political capital after losing his re-election bid to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in October 2022. . He is facing suspicion of involvement in a coup.

Images shared on social media and broadcast by media showed many Bolsonaro supporters wearing Brazilian soccer jerseys.

Protest organizers estimated the number of attendees at 100,000. Authorities have not released the tally.

Right-wing Bolsonaro, who was the subject of a police investigation before and during his four years in power, is being investigated for his alleged role in a campaign to undermine confidence in Brazil’s voting system that culminated in the rebellion on January 8, 2023. there is. There were thousands of his supporters in the capital Brasilia.

On February 8, police confiscated Bolsonaro’s passport and revealed that he had edited a draft decree to overturn the results of the 2022 election, pressured military leaders to join the coup, and planned to detain Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. He accused me of stopping him.

“Have you seen the draft decree? I haven’t seen it either,” Bolsonaro told reporters on Sunday. “I want to see it. People want to see it, and so does the media.”

The former president, who cannot run for public office until 2030, said his government had never done anything “outside the four lines of the Constitution.”

Last month, Brazil’s federal police formally accused Bolsonaro, who has been skeptical of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, of falsifying his vaccination records, opening the door to criminal charges.

On Sunday, Bolsonaro also took the opportunity to praise Elon Musk, co-founder and CEO of electric car maker Tesla (NASDAQ:) and owner of social media platform X. Bolsonaro called him a defender of freedom of expression. Bolsonaro urged the crowd to give the billionaire “a round of applause.”

After Musk said he would challenge Moraes’ decision to order X to block certain accounts, Musk’s lawyers told Brazil’s Supreme Court that It was stated in the letter. .

Moraes is investigating ‘digital militias’ accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during Bolsonaro’s government.