Pro-Bolsonaro congresswoman draws weapon in São Paulo

Congresswoman Carla Zambelli, a hardcore supporter of President Jair Bolsonaro, was caught on video pointing a firearm at a man in São Paulo. The incident took place in the upscale São Paulo neighborhood of Jardins. 

One video shows Ms. Zambelli following a black man into a diner with her gun pointed at him. She repeatedly tells him to lie on the ground. “What do you want to kill me for?” the man is heard shouting in response.

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It is not yet clear what took place in the minutes before the incident.

In a video published on her social media accounts, Ms. Zambelli said she retaliated to an assault and said she was thrown to the ground by one of her would-be aggressors. “They used a black man to come after me. There were several of them,” she says. “They pushed me and hurt me. They called me a son of a bitch, a prostitute, told me to fuck myself, spat on me multiple times.”

Another video, recorded by a bystander, shows the congresswoman tripping and falling without being pushed, before beginning to pursue the man with whom she and her group were arguing. From that point forward, Ms. Zambelli and her companions (including a man holding a gun) began running after the man. At this point, a shot is heard.

“She went after him, slipped, and fell. At that moment, a guy that was with her drew his gun,” one eyewitness told The Brazilian Report.

The Superior Electoral Court in September banned carrying most private guns and ammunition during Election Day weekend. “The measure seeks to guarantee the free exercise of people’s right to vote, ruling out any possibility of coercion in the course of voting,” wrote Justice Alexandre de Moraes, head of the electoral court, at the time of the decision.

To reporters, Ms. Zambelli admitted that she deliberately ignored the electoral court’s resolution. “I am a lawmaker. The resolution is illegal, and illegal orders are not to be respected,” she said. “I was and will continue to deliberately ignore the resolution of [Chief Electoral Justice] Alexandre de Moraes because he is no lawmaker. He’s simply the head of the Superior Electoral Court and a member of the Supreme Court. He can’t at any moment write a law.”

Ms. Zambelli was, on October 2, the second-most voted candidate in São Paulo, with some 946,000 votes.  

Last Sunday, another staunch supporter of President Jair Bolsonaro was involved in an act of violence. Former Congressman Roberto Jefferson resisted an arrest order against him, shooting at Federal Police officers with a military-grade assault rifle and throwing grenades.

Political observers fear that the political violence that has permeated the campaign could spill over to Election Day tomorrow. 

Brazil’s House and Senate suspended public visits this weekend ahead of a pro-Bolsonaro demonstration scheduled to begin the moment polls close on Sunday at 5 pm (a measure not taken in the first round of votes).

Congresswoman Zambelli on Friday used her Twitter account to call supporters of the president to a “victory party” demonstration that will take place on the Esplanade of Ministries, where Congress is located.

President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies have given multiple signals that they won’t accept electoral results if they don’t go their way. For years, Mr. Bolsonaro has sought to sow distrust in Brazil’s electronic voting system and is now seeking to spin a Brazilian version of Donald Trump’s ‘Big Lie.’ 

One state lawmaker from Goiás, meanwhile, said a Lula win would plunge Brazil into a civil war.

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