Protesters in Brazil again blocked roads and truckers threatened to strike in what could be another wave of support for the incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Six federal highways were blocked Friday morning, although two were cleared by early afternoon, the Federal Highway Patrol said in its first bulletin of road closures since November 9, when the first wave of post-election protests dissipated.
The truckers, some of whom claimed they would not be paid because their company’s accounts had been frozen for allegedly funding past pro-Bolsonaro protests, called on their colleagues to strike in support of the far-right president .
“I think this kind of talk will continue at least until Lula takes office. [on 1 January]said Ana Julia Bernardi, a political scientist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul who studies political culture and disinformation.
“I don’t think the protests will last long, but they will inconvenience people. They sent videos and called people to strike, but there was not the same response as before.
The unrest arose when Bolsonaro posted a video of him driving a tractor, truck and bus, which some supporters interpreted as encouragement.
On Friday, the hashtag #Caminhoneiros, which means truck drivers, was trending on Brazilian Twitter.
Bolsonaro was removed from office on October 30, losing to his leftist foe Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a second round.
But he has so far refused to admit defeat or congratulate his opponent and many of his supporters have taken to the streets to protest with unsubstantiated allegations of fraud.
Many are calling for a return to military dictatorship, with social media flooded with videos of extremists praying, pleading and serenading the army outside barracks across Brazil.
Bolsonaro supporters blocked hundreds of major roads and highways in the days after the election and officials took more than a week to clear the barricades of parked vehicles, burning tires and more detritus.
In his only public appearance since the election, Bolsonaro finally called on his supporters to go home, saying Brazil’s economy could not grow unless the roads were cleared.
His supporters, however, still refused to budge, and it took court orders and battalions of law enforcement officers to clear many roads.
Bolsonaro has had nothing since, with websites calculating from his official log of commitments that he worked around 25 minutes a day in the 10 days following the election.
His team updated their social media feeds nonetheless, and they did so again on TikTok on Friday.
The short video showed him driving a tractor, truck and bus on Howlin Wolf’s Howlin at the Moon soundtrack. Bolsonaro did not speak in the video and he made no statement, but the vehicles have often been used in previous protests.
The petulant display comes the week after the army – one of the former army captain’s main constituencies – published a 63-page report on the electoral process, who found no evidence of fraud.
Bolsonaro has long claimed that Brazil’s electronic voting machines are likely to be fraudulent, although he has offered no proof. The military report acknowledged the reliability of the ballot boxes, saying there was no indication of “fraud or inconsistency in the electronic ballot boxes or in the 2022 electoral process”.
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