MADRID, 4 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Brazil’s Federal Highway Police (PFR) announced Thursday that all federal highways are free of total blockades after four days of protests by supporters of outgoing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
“All federal highways free of blockades,” the PFR has reported on the social network Twitter, where it has detailed that it has broken up 936 protests and that there are still 24 demonstrations that only partially block a lane on a highway.
According to the latest report from the Brazilian authorities, three states continue with partial bans on federal highways: Mato Grosso, Pará and Rondonia.
The protests have been going on since former President Lula won Sunday’s election. His rival, the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, spoke on Tuesday after more than 48 hours in silence, without mentioning his defeat and only emphasizing that he would comply with the Constitution.
In his brief statement, the leader of the Brazilian far-right rejected those who have branded him “anti-democratic” over the years and claimed to have always moved “within the four lines of the Constitution.”
Although he described the roadblocks as a manifestation of “indignation” and “injustice” for “how the electoral process took place”, he asked that they take place in a “peaceful” manner to make it clear that they do not act like the left, whose methods “always harmed the population”. On Wednesday, he posted a video calling on his supporters to clear clogged roads.
“I want to appeal to you: clear the roads, this is not, in my opinion, part of these legitimate demonstrations. We are not going to lose our legitimacy here (…) Protest in another way, in other places, that this is very welcome, it is part of our democracy,” Bolsonaro said, according to ‘Folha de S.Paulo’.
The judge of the Supreme Court, Alexandre de Moraes, endorsed that the state security forces could be deployed to collaborate in the tasks that, theoretically, correspond to the PRF, which depends on the central government.
