Highway Blockades in Brazil Snarl Transportation as Bolsonaro Supporters Refuse to Accept Election Results

Incumbent Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro talks to supporters during a campaign rally and military display on Brazil's 200th Independence day at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, on Sept. 7, 2022. (Wagner Meier/Getty Images)

Truckers are among supporters of Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro who have blocked highways and other roads since the incumbent president lost a tight runoff election to left-wing opponent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Oct. 30.

Lines of semi-trucks have been parked shoulder to shoulder for days along stretches of highways, paralyzing transportation, while in other areas, smoking barricades made of burning tires criss-cross sections of roads in Brazil.

The scenes are emblematic of the devotion and hope inspired by Bolsonaro, and a stark reminder that many Brazilians aren’t ready for higher taxes and increased social welfare programs, which are a trademark among socialist leaders of the region. Da Silva, a former president who’s known as Lula, made clear his intentions to do both during his election campaign.

Days after the results, roadblocks and protests against Lula’s victory continued even as police dismantled more than 730 barricades nationwide since the election.

States with strong Bolsonaro support, such as Santa Catarina and Mato Grosso, are also critical to farming and transport. Disrupted operations there have fueled concerns about the supply chain.

Results from the Oct. 30 presidential election came as such a shock to many Bolsonaro voters, that within hours of the announced results, thousands took to the streets and shut down roads across all 26 states, according to Brazil’s federal highway police (PRF).

Meanwhile, in Brasilia, thousands of protesters gathered outside the army’s headquarters, demanding military intervention. Cries for an official audit of the election results resounded among Bolsonaro’s supporters.

Members of the Parana State Military Police and Federal Highway Police watch as supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro block a highway during a protest on Nov. 1, 2022. (Rodolfo Buhrer/Reuters)

On the morning of Nov. 3, PRF reports said the road blockades continued at 74 points in eight states. The same agency later said that 24 barricades remained overnight on Nov. 3.

Bolsonaro asked protesters to lift the barricades in a Nov. 2 video posted on Twitter.

“I know you are upset ... me too. But we have to keep our heads straight,” Bolsonaro said. “I will make an appeal to you: Clear the highways.”

In the same video, the head of state encouraged his supporters to find other ways to demonstrate, calling the roadblocks a “leftist method” of protesting.

However, some Brazilians don’t think the pro-Bolsonaro camp will be deterred so easily, even after the roads are cleared.

Brazilians Want Out

“I find it unlikely that protesters will stop ... many Bolsonaro voters are disputing the fact that Lula was elected, not whether he was democratically elected,” Renata Castro told The Epoch Times.

Castro is an immigration attorney and the founder of Castro Legal Group in Coral Springs, Florida. As a Brazilian American living in the United States for more than 20 years, she’s seen regimes come and go in her native country.

She says her practice has already braced itself for an influx of clients because “Brazilians have given up believing Brazil is the country of the future and now want out.”

Castro explained that with Lula’s win, Brazilian entrepreneurs and those on the upper economic tier see the United States as a potential refuge from “astronomical taxes and widespread violence.”

That highlights a significant underlying factor for many Bolsonaro supporters who reject Lula’s victory. They want solutions to the country’s rampant poverty and violence without higher taxes.

Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaks after winning the presidential runoff election on Oct. 30, 2022. (Nelson Almeida/AFP via Getty Images)

Wasting no time, the president-elect’s transition team already proposed a constitutional amendment, including a waiver allowing Lula to go beyond the current 2023 spending cap.

At the top of Lula’s priority list is a minimum wage increase of 1.34 percent above inflation, expanded welfare benefits, and health care improvements. A meeting is scheduled for Nov. 8 to discuss the spending package for 2023, which some experts say will exceed $19 billion.

Lula’s proposed increase to the family welfare benefit, known as Auxilio Brasil, will cost upwards of $10 billion alone.

“You know how they intend to pay for this? It’s us, we'll have to pay for it,” Lucas Costa, who owns two businesses in Rio de Janeiro, told The Epoch Times.

Costa, who remembers Lula’s previous time as president, says Brazilian politicians have a long history of making promises that amount to nothing.

“They think it’s easy to solve, so they [politicians] just spend more money. Lula thinks taxing companies and the wealthier classes will fix everything,” he said. “How did that work out for Argentina?”

“Can you fix the economy without making your people poorer?” Costa asked rhetorically.

Criminal Past Forgotten?

Lula was president from 2003 to 2011 and was incredibly popular at home and abroad. A former union boss, Lula boasted that he would clean up government corruption as a left-wing champion of the working class.

However, those promises fell flat amid charges and his eventual conviction of involvement in the Petrobras money laundering scandal. In May 2017, Lula was convicted of money laundering and corruption in what was dubbed Brazil’s “trial of the century.”

The former president was sentenced to 10 years in prison and lost a Supreme Court decision to remain free while appealing his conviction in April 2018.

Ignoring the decision, Lula initially refused to surrender to the police. He hid in a union headquarters office outside Sao Paulo, which his followers guarded and refused to allow police to enter.

After a tense standoff, Lula conceded and was imprisoned in 2018.

In 2019, the president-elect was convicted again in another corruption scandal that involved taking bribes from construction companies. The conviction added an additional 12 years and 11 months to his prison sentence.

However, in November 2019, the court reversed its decision requiring the imprisonment of people who'd been convicted but denied their first appeal. That allowed Lula to walk free and continue appealing the charges against him as a normal citizen.

Now that he’s been returned to office, he faces a deeply divided nation struggling with an economic downturn and inflation.

Castro said Bolsonaro’s promise to take a hard stance on widespread government corruption and nationwide crime was a bust, and he gave Lula “passage to getting a third term during Brazil’s rather young democracy.”

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro arrives to cast his vote at Vila Militar district in Rio de Janeiro on Oct. 30, 2022. (Wagner Meier/Getty Images)

“If Lula’s economic thinking has not changed, Brazil could be in for another round of rough economic sledding,” Desmond Lachman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,  wrote in an article for Barron’s.

He noted that rocking the money boat in Latin America’s largest economy is the “last thing that a highly challenged world economy now needs.”

On Nov. 3, Bolsonaro committed to a government transition with Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin, which will allow Lula’s inauguration on Jan. 1, 2023.

“The president reiterated commitments of his officials regarding the transition, marked by transparency, planning, and predictability,” Alckmin told local reporters after meeting with the outgoing head of state.

While Bolsonaro has agreed to the transition, he has yet to concede to Lula in the contested election.