Brazil: Follow LIVE the massive roadblocks of Bolsonaro truckers who demand a military coup

“Free the roads!” demands Rosangela Senna, stranded this Tuesday at a bus station in Sao Paulo due to the multiple blockades in Brazil of Bolsonarist protesters who do not recognize the electoral defeat of the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. “There is an order from the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to unblock the roads, and the police cannot remove the truck drivers. It’s absurd”, laments this 62-year-old real estate agent who has been waiting for long hours for her bus to leave. “I was able to pay for a night in a hotel, but a lot of people had to sleep here,” she tells AFP.

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Roadblocks intensified on Tuesday in Braziltwo days after the triumph of the leftist exmandatario Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the presidential ballot against Bolsonaro by a narrow margin (50.9% to 49.1%).

LOOK: Jair Bolsonaro avoids acknowledging his defeat against Lula but says he will respect the Brazilian Constitution

Despite the rejection of sectors opposed to Bolsonarism, the calls to support the roadblocks multiplied on Twitter and in groups of followers of the head of state on Telegram, an AFP digital investigation team found.

Truckers block highways in Rio de Janeiro. (EFE/ Andre Coelho).

The Federal Highway Police (PRF) reported 167 total or partial roadblocks on Wednesday morning, in at least 22 of the 27 states of Brazil.

LOOK: Bolsonaro says that trucker blockades are the result of “indignation” at how the elections took place

According to the Minister of Justice and head of the Brazilian Federal Police, Anderson Torres, “About 200 points have already been unlocked.”

“It is a complex operation”, with “more than 75,000 kilometers of roads, which requires a large number of personnel and logistics”, Torres said this Tuesday during a press conference at the headquarters of his portfolio.

“We have requested the support of the federal police, the national police and the military police (…) to restore order as soon as possible to guarantee the right of citizens to come and go, and the movement of goods and people”, he added.

Aerial view showing supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro, mainly truck drivers, blocking the Castelo Branco highway, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on November 1, 2022. (CAIO GUATELLI / AFP)

On Monday night, Alexandre de Moraes, STF judge, ordered the “immediate unblocking of roads and public highways” and asked the PRF to take “all necessary measures.”

Tear gas

The road that leads to the International Airport of Guarulhos in Sao Paulo, the largest in the country, was reopened to traffic after police intervention.

Its blockade in the early hours of the morning caused some flights to be delayed or cancelled, according to local media.

“No Lula!”, read a sign hanging over an overpass on that São Paulo road.

The PRF asked the demonstrators to leave, but the latter refused and sat on the ground, blocking several traffic lanes on the banks of the Tiete River, an AFP journalist confirmed.

Members of the police guard groups of truckers blocking highways in Rio de Janeiro. (EFE/ Andre Coelho).

“We have been here since yesterday (Monday), at times there were up to 500 people, but some go to rest and then come back”Jeremías Costa told AFP.

In Novo Hamburgo, near Porto Alegre (south), Police used tear gas to disperse protesters blocking a roadobserved an AFP photographer.

The largest number of roadblocks were recorded in the south of the country, including in the state of St. Catarinawhere Bolsonaro He got about 70% of the votes.

In one of the closures, in Palhoça, the situation is tense and the PRF negotiates with the demonstrators so that they lift the blockade without problems, as AFP was able to observe.

In Brasilia, the police restricted since Monday night vehicle access to the Plaza de los Tres Poderes, where the Planalto Palace, the Congress and the Supreme Court are located, near the immense Esplanade of the Ministries, a meeting point in the capital.

This “preventive” measure was taken “after the identification of a possible demonstration convened on the spot on social networks,” the Secretariat of Public Security of the Federal District of Brasilia said in a statement.

The call in the Bolsonarist networks warned that “Brazil will not be a Venezuela”, and reproduced the words that Senator Flavio Bolsonaro dedicated to his father on social networks on Monday: “Bolsonaro, we are with you for whatever comes.”

Source: Elcomercio