Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the left-wing former president and leader of the Workers’ Party, currently leading the polls for the October 2 ballot, sent his condolences to the family of the deceased, who belonged to his party, and called for “dialogue, tolerance and peace”. Jair Bolsonaro, the current far-right president who could be ousted in an election, said he did not want the support of violent supporters but posted a series of tweets attacking the left for what he called an “unquestionable history of violence”. . Bolsonaro has a history of brutality and his supporters have been behind a series of recent attacks that culminated last weekend in the killing of the Labor Party treasurer in the western city of Foz de Iguazu. Marcelo de Arruda was killed at his own 50th birthday party on Sunday morning when a Bolsonaro supporter stormed the event and shot him three times. Arunda, a municipal guard who had organized a Lula-themed party, returned fire before he died, leaving the attacker in serious condition in hospital. The attack came just two days after another Bolsonaro supporter threw a crude improvised device containing excrement into the crowd at a Lula campaign rally in Rio de Janeiro. In another incident in Minas Gerais state three weeks earlier, a drone dropped raw sewage on a pro-Lula rally. The attacks coincide with a polarization in Brazilian politics that accelerated in 2016 with the impeachment of Lula’s chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff, and Lula’s imprisonment two years later on corruption charges – convictions overturned in 2019 after prosecutors found that they had agreed with the judge. What has changed since then, experts say, is a growing sense, especially on the right, that political differences cannot be resolved through debate. “This far-right group, many of whom, including the president, have fascist ideas, do not want to recognize the institutions and established rules of the game,” said Darci Frigo, president of Brazil’s National Human Rights Council. “Bolsonaro made a decision to eliminate the left and allowed his supporters to use violence to do that, to divide and hate. “What happened in Foz de Iguaçu is not an isolated case, it was encouraged by the president’s rhetoric.” Bolsonaro trails Lula by double digits in most polls and the prospect of defeat is behind much of his inflammatory language, experts said. His hostility comes even as Bolsonaro himself is the highest victim of political violence in recent years. The populist leader was stabbed a month before the 2018 election and spent weeks in hospital before recovering in time to win the presidency. Even before that, Bolsonaro had espoused extremist views against gays, women and Afro-Brazilians, and most often against the left. In 2018 he mimed firing a machine gun and told a crowd in Acre state that he wanted to “crush” the leftists and “run them out” of the state. His rhetoric has not softened in power and his disappointing poll numbers are leading him to embrace increasingly extreme positions designed to energize his hardline base and scare opposition activists off the streets, said Felipe Borba, coordinator of a political violence think tank in Rio. Unirio University. “The use of violence against opponents is instigated as part of an electoral strategy … especially by President Jair Bolsonaro against supporters of former President Lula,” Borba said. “It also does it to take the focus away from the country’s real problems.” Borba said the increase in violence comes at the start of a tense few months of campaigning, not only for the president but also for Congress and 27 state governors. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST A study by his office showed that the number of politically motivated attacks so far in 2022 is higher than in the same period two years ago, ahead of municipal elections. The data is particularly serious given that there are more candidates and contests in municipal elections than in national ones. Even more troubling is the president’s potential end game. Bolsonaro has repeatedly questioned the reliability of the electronic ballots used in Brazil, even though there is little or no evidence that they are vulnerable, and has openly warned that he may refuse to leave office if the result does not go his way. “If Bolsonaro loses the election and you combine that with his intolerance and the perception that he was cheated, we could have large-scale violence after the election, something close to what we saw in the United States with the storming of the Capitol. Borba said.
