Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro called on his protesting supporters to dismantle hundreds of road blocks, saying these harm the economy and aren’t a legitimate form of demonstrating.
In a video posted on Twitter, Bolsonaro said that holding protests elsewhere “is very welcome, it’s part of our democracy.”
Supporters of the president who refuse to accept his defeat in Sunday’s election took to the streets across the country on Wednesday. Some congregated outside army bases, criticizing the electoral process and holding signs calling on the military to intervene to overturn the official results.
According to local media outlet G1, there were demonstrations in front of military installations in at least 24 states, as well as in the Federal District, where the capital Brasilia is located. Bolsonaro, a former army officer, has strong support among the military, though the constitution forbids them from interfering in politics.
The president appeared grudgingly to accept his defeat in a speech on Tuesday. Although he didn’t formally concede, he said he would follow the constitution, and has ordered his chief of staff to begin the transition process.
The demonstrations were still partially or fully blocking 146 highways across 17 states on Wednesday afternoon, while 688 protests had already been dismantled, according to the federal highway police. That compares to more than 200 highways affected on Tuesday morning.
The protests, which threaten to disrupt Brazil’s key agriculture sector, are being held after the president lost to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by a margin of less than 2 percentage points, the tightest result in a presidential runoff in the country’s recent history.
