‘Let them clean the roads’: Brazilians want pro-Bolsonaro roadblocks removed

“Let them clear the roads,” wailed a Brazilian from Rio, blocked by roadblocks set up across the territory by pro-Bolsonaro demonstrators who did not recognize the defeat of their far-right president in Sao Paulo on Tuesday.

“There is an order from the Supreme Court to clean the roads…the federal traffic police cannot convince the truckers” and the demonstrators said, “This is unthinkable”, waiting for Rosangala Senna, a 62-year-old real estate agent. An imaginary coach leaving the bus station.

“I could pay for one night in a hotel, but a lot of people had to sleep here,” he adds.

Roadblocks intensified Tuesday in Brazil (50.9% for Bolsonaro vs. 49.1%), two days after Lula was elected president.

AFP’s digital investigative team found that calls to support them have proliferated on Twitter and in pro-Bolsonaro groups on Telegram.

In at least 22 of Brazil’s 27 states, the Central Road Police (PRF) reported 267 roadblocks, total or partial, by midday. According to General Manager Anderson Torres, “200 roadblocks have already been removed”.

On Monday evening, a Supreme Court judge ordered the “immediate blocking of roads and public thoroughfares” and asked the Federal Highway Police (PRF) to take “all necessary measures”.

– tear gas –

The highway leading to Sao Paulo’s Cuarulhos International Airport, the country’s largest, has reopened to traffic after a police intervention. Local media reported that some flights were delayed or canceled due to its early-morning congestion.

“I booked a flight at 9:20 a.m., I’m with my disabled wife, and we couldn’t board because they canceled our flight,” Marlon Santos, 51, complained to AFP-TV.

In Sao Paulo, a sign hung over an overpass read “Not Lula! “. Federal traffic police asked the demonstrators to leave, but the latter refused to move and sat on the ground, blocking traffic in three lanes along the banks of the Tietê River, an AFP journalist noted.

“We have been here since yesterday, there have been up to 500 people, but people are going to rest and come back,” Jeremias Costa told AFP-TV.

His move is “about the election, the future of Brazil, the future of our children,” he said, adding that he is “impatiently waiting for a reaction from him (Jair Bolsonaro), but it’s not his. The person, it’s not for Bolsonaro, it’s for Brazil, it’s for democracy.”

In Novo Hamburgo, near Porto Alegre (south), uniformed police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, an AFP photographer noted.

The highest number of roadblocks have been identified in the south of the country, as Jair Bolsonaro won almost 70% of the vote in the state of Santa Carina.

An AFP journalist noted that one of them is in Balhoza, where the situation is tense and the PRF is negotiating with demonstrators so that they can smoothly lift the blockade.

In Brasilia, since Monday evening, police have banned vehicles from accessing the Square of the Three Powers, which houses the presidential palace, parliament and the Supreme Court. Capital city.

This “preventive” measure was taken “after the identification of a possible demonstration in this location on social networks,” indicated the Secretariat of Public Security of the Federal District of Brasilia.

A call to demonstrate that “Brazil will not be Venezuela” was launched in Bolsonaroist networks, with Senator Flavio Bolsonaro reproducing the words dedicated to his father on Monday: “Bolsonaro, we are with you”.

More than 36 hours after the official results came out, the outgoing president has yet to acknowledge his defeat.