A boisterous student rally of tens of thousands took over the central avenue of Rio de Janeiro Wednesday afternoon Oct. 7, urging the re-election of President Lula da Silva in run-off elections Oct. 25, and warning that a victory for his opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, would unleash savage cuts in education and head the country toward dictatorship. (See Oct. 7 report on EIR.news, “Students Mobilize in Brazil to Elect Lula President,” for background).
The rally got fairly widespread coverage in the Brazilian press, and in three international outlets—AP, AFP, and EFE. Two of the largest media conglomerates promoting Bolsonaro, Estadão and O Globo, blacked it out.
President Lula himself encouraged the emergence of this youth mobilization as a key factor to fire up larger forces in the country to break the momentum of the Wall Street-controlled neo-con Bolsonaro, who won the first round by roughly 2 percent of the votes and has since been endorsed by three right-wing candidates who cumulatively could give him a further bump. In a video published Wednesday morning on his social networks, he appeared alongside young elected candidates. “Let’s go guys! To the streets,” he said. “Let’s talk to people! You who like Brazil, who like education, who like democracy, who want to have a quality job [...] Let’s go to the street! …It’s time!”
The student rallies began across Guanabara Bay from Rio, in Niterói, Monday evening, less than 24 hours after the close of polls Sunday night. On Tuesday, substantial student marches and rallies took place in Recife, in Brazil’s Northeast, and in Belém, capital of the Amazon state of Pará. Wednesday morning students from the State University of Paraíba (UEPB) in the Northeast, occupied the university campus, in defense of “democracy, sovereignty and public education.” Further actions in a dozen other cities are planned over the coming few days, and many dozens for next week.
A statement of support for the Brazilian youth mobilization from the International Youth Movement of the Schiller Institute is circulating among student leadership circles in Rio and Sao Paulo.
