MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro discharge from hospital greeted by women's rallies: against and in support

Controversial Bolsonaro was released from hospital on Saturday after being stabbed and seriously wounded by a left-wing activist in a rally on 6 September

Women across Brazil launched a wave of nationwide protests on Saturday against the candidacy of the right-wing frontrunner in next Sunday's presidential elections, Jair Bolsonaro.The controversial Bolsonaro, who was released from hospital on Saturday after being stabbed and seriously wounded by a left-wing activist during a rally on September 6, is currently leading in opinion polls.

 Marches organized by a social media campaign under the hashtag #EleNao (Not Him) began in the afternoon in dozens of cities including Rio de Janeiro, where thousands of women converged at vast Cinelandia square, to be joined by a column of others marching from the Avenida Rio Branco, a major thoroughfare.

Small groups took to the streets even earlier in Sao Paulo and other locations. Demonstrations also took place abroad, from Dublin and Paris to Budapest and Beirut. Superstar Madonna proclaimed her solidarity with the cause in an Instagram post that included the hashtag #endfascism.

The Time's Up movement for gender equality tweeted its support: “To our sisters in Brazil: We are all in this together. We see you and hear you. We are with you.”

Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old former army captain, has been branded racist, misogynist and homophobic by his detractors. He has specifically angered women by seeking to justify a yawning gender wage gap, and has argued against employing women if it was likely they would become pregnant.

Bolsonaro further inflamed his opponents on Friday by saying he would accept no outcome in the October 7 balloting but his own victory. “From what I see on the streets, I do not accept any election result that is not my election,” he said in an interview with a local television network.

Center-left candidate Ciro Gomes said that Bolsonaro would be “striking a blow against our democracy” and that the best antidote was “not to vote Bolsonaro in the first round in order to protect Brazil from a leap into the abyss.”

The women's campaign, launched on Facebook in early September, called on women of all political persuasions to come together “against the advancement and strengthening of machismo, misogyny, racism, homophobia and other prejudice.”

But Bolsonaro's supporters laud both his tough stance on tackling Brazil's rising crime rate and his pledge to protect traditional family values. Hundreds of his female supporters staged pro-Bolsonaro rallies on Rio's Copacabana beach and in Sao Paulo.

“I support Bolsonaro because he has a clean record,” Elizabeth Resende, a regional candidate with Bolsonaro's Social Liberal Party, said in Sao Paulo. “He is not homophobic or macho. I'm with him because I'm not a feminist -- I'm female -- and want respect for my children and a better country,” she said.

Joao Feres Junior, professor of political science at Rio de Janeiro's State University, said women were making gender an election issue in Brazil for the first time, acting “not to support a candidate, but as citizens faced with a political project that excludes them.”

Analyst Ligia Fabris Campos, of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said “there is no record of such a broad mobilization of women” in recent Brazilian history.