THE OBSERVER:
His rural voters see the embattled president as a ‘messenger from God’. And this week they will march in the cities to support him
Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro take part in the ‘march of the Christian family for freedom’, in Brasilia, Brazil, on 15 May. Photograph: Joédson Alves/EPA
Jair Bolsonaro supporters aren’t hard to find in Sinop, an agricultural boomtown in the Brazilian Amazon where nearly 80% of voters backed the country’s ultra-conservative leader in the 2018 election.
“He’s a president of the people,” said Marcos Watanabe, the head of the city’s conservative association, sporting a T-shirt stamped with Bolsonaro’s name.
Few, however, are as passionate as the president of Sinop’s farmers’ union, Ilson José Redivo, who has placed a billboard of his leader outside its headquarters with the slogan: “We believe in God and we value the family. We’re with Bolsonaro.”
“He’s trying to change Brazil,” said the 64-year-old corn and soya bean farmer who
hosted the rightwing populist in Sinop last year at an event attended by members of the region’s powerful agribusiness elite.
Redivo is one of millions of Bolsonaro devotees expected to hit the streets on 7 September for one in a series of mass rallies that have jolted Brazilian politics and left many citizens fretting over the future of their country’s young democracy.
“It will be the largest demonstration Brazil has ever seen,” Redivo claimed on Friday as he prepared to make the 780-mile journey to Brazil’s capital, Brasília, where one of the largest mobilisations will be held.
» | Tom Phillips in Sinop | Sunday, September 5, 2021
