International manifesto in defense of elections in Brazil
Press release September 19th 2022
Roger Waters, Anne Hidalgo, Danny Glover, Pablo Iglesias and Noam Chomsky are among the more than 100 artists, academics, activists and politicians from 10 countries who sign the the letter
Document seeks to support Brazilian institutions in the face of Bolsonaro's anti-democratic attacks
A group of foreign political, academic and artistic personalities launched this Monday, September 19st, a manifesto against President Jair Bolsonaro’s attacks on democracy in Brazil and in defense of the electoral system and the institutions in charge of overseeing the outcome of the dispute on October 2.
The manifesto page was launched this Monday (19) on the internet, containing names of an initial group of just over 100 signatories. The document brings with it a form for new subscribers to join. As it is an international manifesto, membership is restricted to people who are outside Brazil – Brazilian or not.
The launch of the initiative is international. In Brazil, there will be a remarkable ceremony, scheduled to take place at Tuca, PUC theater in São Paulo, at Rua Monte Alegre, nº 1024, during the ceremony that will mark the 45th anniversary of the invasion of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo by dictatorship agents, on September 22, 1977, in an incident that resulted in the arrest of more than 500 students. The American historian James Green, chairman of the Board of Directors of the WBO (Washington Brazil Office), will give the official reading of the manifesto during the ceremony.
The text of the manifesto, which until this Thursday (15) had already gathered more than one hundred signatures, says that “Bolsonaro plans to contest his eventual defeat by discrediting the Brazilian electoral system”. The signatories also claim that the Brazilian president “accuses Supreme Court justices of being corrupt and partisan, predicts that votes will be tampered with, and suspects that the media is at the service of the opposing camp, which “raises risk that the results of the elections will not be heard and respected”.
Names such as British musician Roger Waters, a former member of Pink Floyd; American actor Danny Glover; philosophers Michael Lowy and Noam Chomsky; the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo; former vice president of Spain Pablo Iglesias; and the president of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto, sign the document, which, as of September 22nd, will be open to new members on the website of the WBO, a non-partisan Brazilian think tank based in Washington, which conceived the manifesto together with the USNDB (US Network for Democracy in Brazil), the Common Action Forum, the Red (European Network for Democracy in Brazil) and the Coletivo Passarinho.
The signatories ask “that the presidential elections in Brazil take place under the terms of the Constitution, that all threats and violence against the candidates and their supporters be condemned and fought, that republican institutions be maintained in their attributions and their decisions respected and that the Forces Armadas do not interfere in the electoral process, in the verification of results or in the transition of power”.
Other international actions
The release of the text is part of a series of broader actions in defense of democracy in Brazil at the international level. In July, the WBO organized the visit of 19 representatives of Brazilian civil society organizations to Washington. In meetings with members of the US State Department, in addition to representatives and senators, the Brazilian delegation reported the attacks on the Brazilian electoral system. The delegation also asked that these interlocutors recognize the result of the presidential elections, as soon as it is announced, whoever the winner is.
Two months after the delegation's trip, on September 9, a group of almost 40 US representatives and senators – many of whom had been with representatives of Brazilian organizations in Washington in July – gave US President Joe Biden a letter in which they ask the US government to break off relations with Brazil and take other measures if the October election result is not respected.
Throughout the month of September, a series of similar meetings took place in European capitals such as Berlin, Brussels, Madrid and Paris, in addition to Geneva. At these meetings, members of the European Parliament and the United Nations, in addition to other political interlocutors, were alerted to Bolsonaro's attacks on Brazilian democracy and the electoral system.
Also in September, the same organizations involved in the launch of the manifesto launched the International Month in Defense of Democracy in Brazil, in which universities such as Harvard, Brown and Princeton, in the USA, have already announced the holding of debates, lectures and roundtables that have as a theme Brazilian politics and the current moment of democracy in the country.
