The result obtained by the Bolsonaro candidature in Brazil’s presidential elections represents – coming in the sequence of the institutional coup d’Etat which deposed the legitimate President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and the arbitrary arrest of Lula da Silva who was banned from running in the elections – an extremely serious development in the offensive against the rights of the Brazilian workers and people, which embodies a programme of intensified exploitation and assault on social rights, of an aggression against freedoms and democracy, of an abdication of national sovereignty and subordination to imperialism, of the promotion of profoundly reactionary values and the imposition of a dictatorial-like power in Brazil.

Denouncing the responsibilities of the big economic and financial groups, of the big landowners and the most backward and putschist sectors for the deterioration of the situation in Brazil, the PCP underscores that this result is inseparable from the support and systematic whitewashing of the real goals of the Bolsonaro candidature by the major mass media – including in Portugal – and through social networks.

The PCP salutes the Brazilian Communists and other democratic and progressive forces who have united around the Fernando Haddad and Manuela D’Avila candidature, for the expressive and important result which they have achieved in extraordinarily difficult conditions. This result is, in itself, important in continuing to confront with determination the fascist threat and in defending democracy.

The PCP calls for the strengthening of solidarity with the Brazilian democratic and progressive forces, with the Brazilian workers and people, and their struggle to embark once again and to carry further, the path of social progress, sovereign development, cooperation and peace which was opened up in 2002, with the election of Lula da Silva as President of Brazil.