Brazil: Lula da Silva silences the clamor of the radical coup plotters in two days

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva deactivated in two days the noise of the extreme right with strong popular support and decisions that have already discouraged former President Jair Bolsonaro’s most radical supporters.

Perhaps the greatest symbol of the significance of Lula’s return to power, which he had already exercised between 2003 and 2010, was seen on Tuesday in front of the army headquarters in Brasilia, where radical groups have been camping for two months demanding a military coup that would keep Bolsonaro in government.

Of the camp that has come to gather about 10,000 peopleon Tuesday, there were only a few abandoned shops left and a few signs on the floor, still reading “Armed forces save Brazil”.

the field it started to decline last weekwhen Bolsonaro traveled to the United States without a return ticket, considered a “betrayal” by many activists who until then believed he would “activate” the military.

Sunday, the day of Lula’s inauguration, Bolsonaro caravans who had left various parts of the country for Brasilia they have not finished their journeyafter authorities warned they could not get to army headquarters.

In Brasilia, some 300,000 people enveloped the new president, who also received the largest number of foreign delegations seen at an inauguration in the country, led by some twenty heads of state and government from all continents.

disarmament

The discouragement It was completed with some of the measures taken by Lula immediately after taking office, which led to the demobilization of what the Army Reserve captain, now a refugee in Miami, called “armed people”.

In speeches he delivered on Sunday, Lula sent a strong message against the “movements inspired by fascism” that have arisen in Brazil and “many other countries” and has guaranteed that his government will not tolerate conspiracies against democracy.

beyond words, signed a decree which points to the heart of some of Bolsonaro’s policies that have helped give wings to the most radicals and promoted the purchase of arms by civil society.

In one of his first acts, he repealed the regulations issued by Bolsonaro, suspended new registrations of firearms, tightened the rules for their acquisition and established that no other permits would be issued for the creation of shooting clubs, one of the seeds of the ultra movement .

Furthermore, he ordered the Armed Forces to carry out, within 60 days, a complete review of the permits for the purchase and possession of weapons issued since 2019 and announced the creation of a government working group to promote the disarmament of civilians.

The Bolsonarista networks are silenced

The most radical movement of the far right, which was structured on social networksis reduced to a minimum your internet business, cornered by judicial decisions against the spread of lies and “undemocratic” disinformation campaigns.

In the last weeks, about twenty activists were arrested and Justice is still looking for some of those responsible for some violent protests that took place in Brasilia on the night of December 12th.

Politically, the new governor of São Paulo, Tarcisio Gomes de Freitasformer minister and faithful squire of Bolsonaro, he has begun to distance himself from the captain and has guaranteed that he will maintain a “Republican” relationship. and “cooperation” with the Lula government.

There were also movements in the Liberal Party (PL), which was the platform for Bolsonaro’s frustrated re-election bid.

This Tuesday, MP Flávia Arruda, another former far-right government minister, resigned from the PL and claimed she was doing so based on “democratic ideals” which the party did not respect.

Bolsonaro, from Miami, remain unaware of all this. On his Twitter profile, in which he still introduces himself as “President of the Federative Republic of Brazil”, this same Tuesday he posted a message as if he were still in power: “Government of Jair Bolsonaro announces 38.9% rate cut” electricity by 2023.

Or “In December 2022 we sanctioned the bill that regulates the practice of telemedicine throughout the national territory”.

The author is an EFE journalist

ap​