Bolsonaro leads right-wing rally at CPAC Brazil event

[July 06, 2024]  By Anderson Coelho

BALNEARIO CAMBORIU, Brazil (Reuters) - Former Brazilian far-right President Jair Bolsonaro will lead a rally of conservative supporters on Saturday to drum up support for allied candidates in this year's municipal elections and project his influence ahead of the 2026 presidential race.

The CPAC Brasil 2024 event at the beach resort of Balneario Camboriu in Southern Brazil is slated as the first major opposition rally of the campaign for local mayoral elections in October.

It will also have a regional dimension with the presence of Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei and former Chilean right-wing presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast.

"It will be very important for us to once again bring together Conservatives with a liberal view of the economy to discuss the future of the right-wing in Brazil," said former environment minister Ricardo Salles on the CPAC Brasil site.

Salles said the right is advancing in the United States, in Europe and in Latin America with Argentina's Milei.

"But in Brazil, what are we going to do? What are the next steps? Who are our main enemies, what are the threats and what are the opportunities for our group on the right," he wrote.

Bolsonaro lost his re-election bid to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and has been banned from running for elected office until 2030 due to his attacks on Brazilian democracy and its electronic voting system.

Despite being under investigation for his alleged role in encouraging supporters to storm government buildings a week after Lula took office in January last year, Bolsonaro still maintains a large following that share his right-wing views, which he successfully broadcasts on social media.

Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro reacts at an event at the Municipal Theatre in Sao Paulo, Brazil March 25, 2024. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli/File Photo

With funding from his right-wing so-called Liberal Party, Bolsonaro draws crowds wherever he goes to back candidates for the upcoming local elections. "Bolsonaro supporters are excited about this CPAC rally that will boost his movement," a source close to the former president told Reuters.

Guilherme Casaroes, a political scientist at the FGV think tank in Sao Paulo, said the presence of Milei and Kast shows that Bolsonaro and his political associates want Brazil to become a hemispheric hub for far-right coordination.

"The CPAC event will serve as a platform for Brazil's extremists to make their narrative global, building on the idea that conservatives across the hemisphere are being persecuted by left-wing governments and by authoritarian courts," he said.

Casaroes said the venue was chosen in Santa Catarina state because it has become "a pro-Bolsonaro bunker" much like Florida is to former Trump and the U.S. far right.

(Writing by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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