Commentary
Millions of Brazilians flocked the streets of São Paulo and other capital cities on Feb. 25 in defence of democracy and human rights.
The protests took place amid concerns that Brazil’s President Lula da Silva is currently installing an authoritarian regime based on radical socialism and the suppression of individual rights.
The Brazilian government is presently censoring social media and these pro-democracy demonstrations are not being publicised even by the local press.
Even foreign reporters who seek to report on these protests are being seriously punished.
For example, Portuguese reporter Sergio Tavares was detained on Feb. 25 at the São Paulo airport. The federal police withheld his passport because he came to publicise the demonstration.
He revealed that he was then questioned regarding his statements about electoral fraud, judicial activism, Jan. 8, and vaccines.
There’s a Track Record
Mr. Lula’s election win in November 2022 was confirmed by highly politicised electoral judges. The problem, however, is that millions of Brazilians simply do not believe that Mr. Lula would ever be elected by normal democratic means.Of course, it was definitely an unexpected comeback for a notoriously corrupt politician, an unpopular ex-president who was directly responsible for the biggest series of corruption scandals in the nation’s history.
Mr. Lula was sentenced to 12 years and one month in prison for widespread corruption and money laundering. However, he spent only a year and a half in jail because, in 2021, a judge of the Supreme Court annulled all these convictions on entirely technical grounds.
The court did not say a word about Lula’s culpability—demonstrated in three court decisions, before nine judges, and in a series of criminal proceedings where there were numerous confessing witnesses, plea bargains, and even the return of stolen money.
Instead, the court simply stated that the former president should not have been prosecuted in the city of Curitiba, but rather in Brasilia, thus restoring Lula’s political rights that enabled him to run for this year’s presidential election.
Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro attend a rally in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Feb. 25, 2024. Miguel Schincariol/AFP via Getty Images
Back in 2002, Mr. Lula told the French newspaper Le Monde, that he “strongly believes that every election is a farce and a mere step to take power.”
In another interview with Argentina’s leading newspaper, La Nación, Mr. Lula said, “We have to first give the impression that we are democrats, initially; we have to accept certain things. But that won’t last.”
Knowing this, it would not be unreasonable to question the presidential election.
Fair and Transparent
Mr. Lula’s opponent, Jair Bolsonaro, who sought re-election in 2022, relied on the messaging app Telegram to reach his voter base. However, on March 18, 2022, the Supreme Federal Court ordered the nationwide suspension of Telegram.The social media outlet Rumble is also banned from Brazil for the “crime” of upholding freedom of speech.
Due in part to the fact that unelected judges, including those responsible for overseeing the recent presidential election, were ostensibly playing a political role that is not fitting to the judicial function, millions of Brazilians have therefore a good reason to question the reliability and transparency of the electoral system.
Aren’t we expected to believe that elections must be fair and transparent? But is there any reason to believe that those elections were just that?
Now, millions of Brazilians are turning out to protest not only against the alleged lack of electoral transparency but also against the installation of a leftist regime.
These concerned Brazilians took to the streets of major capital cities to protest against a president who not only has been controversially elected but who is now allegedly using the court to persecute and arrest all his political dissidents.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
