The deputy and national treasurer of the Workers’ Party (PT), Márcio Macedo, has submitted to Brazil’s Lower House a legislative bill with which to prohibit the «political» use of national symbols, omnipresent in the anti-democratic and pro-Jair Bolsonaro demonstrations, calling on the Army to intervene in the institutions.
However, Macedo has argued that the objective of these proposals is to «save» the use of the flag, thus avoiding its «wear and tear» and «trivialization», regardless of political parties and ideologies.
If approved, during the next legislature, President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would be forbidden to use the flag or the anthem during his campaign acts.
Macedo explained that the «unnecessary» use of national symbols by «political factions» may cause these emblems, which unite all Brazilians, to become «signs of division».
«This is what we have seen lately in the elections, when certain groups have used national symbols to generate division among Brazilians, spread hatred, discord and false news, even to make apology for Nazism, in whose defeat Brazil heroically participated on European soil,» Macedo said.
Since Lula won the second round of the elections last October 30, protests and mobilizations have been taking place demanding a military coup from the Army. Among the most controversial images are the several dozens of people making the Nazi salute while swearing the flag in front of a barracks in Santa Catarina, where Bolsonaro won more than 69 percent of the votes.
The PT initiative comes at a time when the left has launched a sort of campaign to try to recover some national symbols distorted by Bolsonaro and his supporters, to such an extent that many have renounced to wear the yellow jersey of the national soccer team.
Lula already criticized Bolsonaro for the «political use» of these symbols, accusing him of having «abandoned» the Brazilian people while using the flag to lie and spread hatred, and encouraged the left to re-appropriate all these signs.
