The Americas | A conservative crack-up

Some of President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters are turning against him

That could affect his chances of re-election next year

|São Paulo

MOVIMENTO BRASIL LIVRE (MBL), or the Free Brazil Movement, is a group of angry young men who have a knack for using social media and the streets to achieve their political goals. Since being founded seven years ago, the right-wing group has helped bring down one president, leftist Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached in 2016, and has played kingmaker to another, the populist Jair Bolsonaro, who was elected in 2018. But MBL was nowhere to be seen on September 7th when Mr Bolsonaro’s fans filled the streets in support of his struggling government. Instead, it organised a counter-protest five days later that called for his impeachment.

This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “A conservative crack-up”

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