Jair Bolsonaro, 69, has called for a million-strong demonstration on the famous beach in a show of strength ahead of elections next year in which he hopes to be a contender.
Several thousand supporters of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro packed Copacabana beach in Rio on Sunday to show their backing for the right-wing firebrand, who is accused of attempting to overthrow his left-wing successor.
Bolsonaro, 69, has called for a million-strong demonstration on the famous beach in a show of strength ahead of elections next year in which he hopes to be a contender.
Brazil’s 2019-2022 president is hoping to emulate US President Donald Trump’s political comeback.
“I am here because I want to leave a better Brazil for my children. We are living in a dark time,” 64-year-old former military officer Jose de Souza Vitorino, who was among the demonstrators, told AFP.
On the stage, where Bolsonaro was due to give a speech, a banner showed Trump with his fist raised following the attempt on his life on the campaign trail last year in Pennsylvania.
The rally’s stated purpose is to demand amnesty for hundreds convicted over the January 8, 2023 riots in the capital Brasilia, when Bolsonaro backers stormed the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court.
The demonstrators demanded that the military oust leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who had defeated arch-rival Bolsonaro in the October 2022 elections and had been sworn in just a week earlier.
The violent rampage evoked the storming of the US Capitol building in Washington by Trump’s supporters almost exactly two years earlier.
Prosecutors believe the riots were part of a criminal plot hatched by the then-former president Bolsonaro to overthrow Lula and return to power.
On March 25, Brazil’s Supreme Court will consider whether there is sufficient evidence to try Bolsonaro, who risks a prison term of more than 40 years.
