Brazilian police arrest 5 officers in alleged 2022 coup plot to kill President Lula and others

[1%er]

Brazil ’s federal police arrested Tuesday five officers accused of plotting a coup that included plans to overthrow the government following the 2022 elections and kill then-President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, authorities said. The five also planned to kill Lula’s running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The arrested included four special operations military personnel, one of whom is a retired brigadier general, and a federal police officer.

More news in English here

 

[skyscraper101]

...arrested five people, including a member of former President Jair Bolsonaro's cabinet

I'm shocked.

 

[skyscraper101]

I was in Brazil last week visiting relatives of my partner's family and although in polite company, I suspected I was among anti-Lula/pro-Bolsonaro supporters. They were keen to find out where I sat politically and knowing where this was going, I was tempted to be mischievous and say I was down with the Unidade Popular socialist party.

Diplomatically I just went with the "no particular allegiance but generally centrist by nature" response which seemed ambiguous enough for them to feel free to wax lyrical about how awful Lula is and defend Bolsonaro despite his shortcomings. Got given a bottle of Cachaça when I left so I guess it was worth it.

 

[1%er]

It was a dot on the card that something like this was being planned back in early 2021 when all the chiefs of the armed forces resigned. Bolsonaro completely changed politics here, more so than Trump did in America in my view. There has always been a strong right wing here, if you look at the polls over the years you still get around 30% of people claiming they want to go back to the military regime from 64 to 85. It wasn't that long ago that the numbers were as high as 43% (2018 to 2020).