Bolsonaro’s right wing is unprecedented, violent and coup – 01/17/2023 – Elio Gaspari

On November 1, right after the electoral defeat, Jair Bolsonaro (PL) boasted: “the right has really emerged in our country”.

In the afternoon of January 8, Bolsonaro’s right wing was seen in Brasilia. Right Pindorama always had, but Bolsonaro’s has its own and unprecedented characteristics. It is a right with popular bases, mobilized for acts of delinquency. Not only George Washington de Oliveira Souza, manager of a gas station in Pará, who is in prison, 23 of the 1,500 prisoners in Brasilia had a criminal record. George Washington Bolsonarist planned a Riocentro 2.0, blowing up a fuel truck in the apron of the Brasília airport, synchronized with a power cut. This is the terrorist arm of that right.

In the arm of the January 8 attacks were two singular figures.

One is Maria de Fátima Mendonça Jacinto Souza, “Fátima de Tubarão” (SC), 67 years old. She invaded the Planalto Palace, warning: “We’re going to war, it’s war now. We’re going to get Xandão now.” Xandão is Minister Alexandre de Moraes. The other is 23-year-old Antônio Geovane Sousa de Sousa, from Pará, who was arrested while trying to ignite an explosive.

Fátima was sentenced to three years and ten months in prison for drug trafficking and is serving her sentence openly. Geovane was arrested in 2018, accused of stabbing a man to death. He’s an outlaw. What drives people with a criminal record to participate in acts like the January 8 attacks can only be an irresponsible sense of impunity. But those could be stories from downstairs.

On the top, you will find Creusa Buss Melotto. Two weeks before the end of your government, you received an authorization from the Institutional Security Office to explore gold prospecting in an area of ​​9,800 hectares in the Amazon. In the 1990s, she served a six-year prison sentence for drug trafficking.

Jair Bolsonaro’s right has nothing to do with figures like Roberto Campos or the ultramontane Catholic Gustavo Corção. She has her head who knows where, but her feet are in the militias, in land grabbing, in Amazonian delinquencies, and even in cases of crimes.

(The connections of the Minister of Tourism, Daniela Carneiro, or “Daniela do Waguinho” with militiamen from the Baixada Fluminense are a burden for the Lula government. Comparing the bulk of Bolsonarist militancy with the PT’s is calling vultures my laurel, but both the vultures like parrots are birds.)

On January 8, the right wing mobilized by Bolsonaro did things that had never been seen in national politics. Violent acts have been committed here and there, but never had the express and persistent support of a national leadership.

Like it or not, Jair Bolsonaro had 58.2 million votes. He lost to Lula by a 2% margin. In a growing electoral universe, in 2022 he had about 400 thousand more votes than in 2018.

January 8 suggests that Bolsonaro’s political downfall may have begun. To his right is another, never seen. Violent and coup-like, with a popular base.

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