Public Note #48 - Bolsonaro announces the coup to the world: it's time to react

Presentation by the Brazilian federal government to ambassadors - Reproduction

Last Monday, July 18, Jair Bolsonaro took a step further in the coup planning he announced four years ago. He had the effrontery to stage the customary spectacle of lies regarding the Brazilian voting system and the brave conduct taken by the ministers of the Superior Electoral Court (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral – TSE, in Portuguese) in order to guarantee its full operation, for about forty ambassadors invited to the Alvorada Palace. The president's objective was clear: to prepare the international environment for his strategy to reject the results of the upcoming October elections, which, according to the polls, tend to disfavor him.

Even though the shot may have backfired, as lucid segments of the world's public opinion have perceived and repudiated the maneuver, it is necessary to reiterate the flagrant falsehood of the presidential statements. In use in the country since 1996, without any record of fraud, the electronic voting machines have been proven to be fast and secure. According to the embassy of one of the nations that witnessed the sad palace spectacle, it is, in fact, a model for the world.

There is, however, a frightening detail in the otherwise innocuous pantomime performed by the president. It is the insistence with which, recalling the constitutional condition of the head of the Armed Forces, he accused the Superior Electoral Court of excluding the military from the debate on the voting system, as if the matter concerned them. The insistence on the theme, four days after the Minister of Defense, General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, had brought to the Senate an absurd proposal for a parallel vote count, denotes a concert of initiatives that deserves to leave the citizens in a fitful state of alert.

Thus, the Arns Commission, interpreting the feeling of indignation that runs through civil society and understanding that it is the duty of all to participate in initiatives in defense of democracy, goes public to state: the time has come to react!

A broad movement – representing the vast majority of Brazilians who chose democracy – must demonstrate how isolated those who threaten freedom and the Rule of Law are. Therefore, we join our voice, as defenders of human rights, to those who understand that prevention is better than cure, especially when fundamental values are at stake.

São Paulo, July 21st, 2022