Brazil: Lula likens Bolsonaro to former US President Donald Trump

[Judi Lynn]

Wednesday, August 11th 2021 - 09:01 UTC

After staging an unprecedented military parade in front of the Planalto Palace, Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro was heavily criticized by his predecessor and electoral rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who said he wants to imitate Donald Trump.

The PT leader said Bolsonaro had the same destabilizing attitude of former US President Trump, as tanks and armored vehicles passed by while the House of Deputies was about to vote on the return to paper ballot voting for next year.

Bolsonaro has even threatened there might be no elections in 2022 if the current electronic system was not supplemented with a more reliable, easy-to-monitor paper ballot, something which eventually the Lower House rejected later in the day.

During the parade, a military officer gave Bolsonaro an invitation to attend maneuvers by the Navy, with the support of the Army and Aeronautics, to be carried out in Formosa, a town in the neighboring state of Goias. These exercises in Formosa have been carried out since 1988.

”The pathetic scene of receiving the invitation in front of the Planalto Palace was not performed by former president José Sarney (1985-1990), nor Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002), nor Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), nor Michel Temer (2016-2018),“ said Lula.

”When Bolsonaro insists with that of the paper ballot, he is trying to generate confusion, like Trump in the United States, we are not going to accept that. Bolsonaro needs to be prepared to know that he is going to lose the elections,“ Lula added Tuesday morning.

More:
https://en.mercopress.com/2021/08/11/brazil-lula-likens-bolsonaro-to-former-us-president-donald-trump