Brazil's PL, the party of former president Jair Bolsonaro, is holding a rally on São Paulo's Paulista avenue on Monday (Sept. 7), the Independence Day holiday, with a goal of drawing 100,000 people. The gathering is set to start at 3 p.m., and its central slogans are "Fora Lula" and "Fora Moraes", Portuguese for "out with Lula" and "out with Moraes", aimed at President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Alexandre de Moraes, a justice on Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal, the STF. According to Poder360, the rally is organized by the party's São Paulo branch and is part of the presidential campaign of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro's son and the PL's candidate in the October election.
Speeches are scheduled from Flávio Bolsonaro, former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro and São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas of the Republicans party. São Paulo Mayor Ricardo Nunes, Congressman Guilherme Derrite, state Assembly Speaker André do Prado and national PL president Valdemar Costa Neto are also set to speak. Pastor Silas Malafaia said he will attend. InfoMoney reported that the party's state branch and allies of Tarcísio worked to bring representatives from about 300 municipalities, and that organizers instructed speakers to aim their criticism at Moraes rather than the court as an institution, while pressing for impeachment requests against the justice to move forward.
A show of strength without Jair Bolsonaro
The rally is a test of the Bolsonaro movement's ability to mobilize without Jair Bolsonaro, who was jailed on Moraes's order. It runs parallel to Lula's official Independence Day parade in Brasília. Flávio Bolsonaro's campaign gained momentum after Justice André Mendonça lifted the secrecy on the investigations into Banco Master; the 218-page report includes conversations between the bank's founder, Daniel Vorcaro, and Moraes, and the candidate wants the justice investigated and removed from the court. In the Quaest poll released Wednesday, Lula had 37% of voting intentions to Flávio's 30%, and a runoff would be a statistical tie, 42% to 41%. Last year, Poder360 counted 48,800 people at the September 7 rally on the Paulista, less than half the party's current target.
In Brasília, the same chants and support for Mendonça
Two anti-Moraes protests filled the morning in the capital, drawing about 600 people combined, according to the news site Metrópoles. The PL event was called by Congresswoman Bia Kicis, a Senate candidate from the Federal District, and gathered more than 300 people at a Funarte parking lot. As UOL reported, the crowd chanted for Lula and Moraes to go and voiced support for Justice André Mendonça. Kicis said Moraes "wanted to include another justice, André Mendonça, in the inquiry and persecute him because he is doing his job as a judge". She also called for amnesty for Jair Bolsonaro. "The one who should be on ballot number 22 was Jair Bolsonaro", she said.
A separate protest in front of the Central Bank was called by appellate judge and Senate candidate Sebastião Coelho of the Novo party, and Senator Eduardo Girão, the vice presidential running mate of candidate Romeu Zema, attended. Girão said Mendonça, whom the group supports, had sent the investigation of his rival to the full court.
"Yesterday, André Mendonça, whom we support fully and unconditionally, sent to the judgment of the Supreme Court the investigation of Justice Moraes, who has 130 million reasons to be removed immediately"
Folha de S.Paulo reported that demonstrators also criticized Senate President Davi Alcolumbre for refusing to schedule a vote on the impeachment requests against Moraes. What comes next: the Paulista rally begins at 3 p.m., and its crowd size will be read as one of the day's main political indicators. The impeachment requests remain pending in the Senate, and the Supreme Court's full bench has received the case of the messages exchanged between Moraes and Vorcaro. Brazil holds its presidential election in October.