At an Americas-wide defence conference this week in Brazil, U.S. President Joe Biden’s defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, is anticipated to urge on militaries to protect democracy.
Though not specifically directed at Brazil, those anticipated comments will undoubtedly make headlines there ahead of the country’s Oct. 2 election. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro officially began his reelection campaign on Sunday by stating, ‘The Army is on our side.’
The right-wing populist has publicly questioned the legitimacy of Brazil’s political process, and some polls show him trailing former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party by about 20 percentage points.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Austin, a retired Army general, will speak at the biannual defence ministers’ meeting and meet one-on-one with regional delegations.
Under the condition of anonymity, a senior U.S. defence official said, ‘He is going to bring a very strong and unambiguous message on the need for militaries to respect democracies to the venue as a whole.’ However, the representative refrained from ‘prejudge[ing]’ what Austin could say to his Brazilian counterparts.
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