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Brazilian women to protest nationwide against far-right presidential candidate

BRAZILIAN women are mobilising for nationwide protests this Saturday to demonstrate opposition to far-right presidential election front runner Jair Bolsonaro.

Hundreds of thousands have signed up for planned Women Against Bolsonaro marches and 2.9 million have joined an online Women United Against Bolsonaro group.

Over 150 artists and 190,000 citizens have already signed a manifesto launched on Monday, warning of the threats opposed to democracy by the far-right presidential candidate.

The petition denounces Mr Bolsonaro as “a clear threat to our fundamental civilised heritage” and warns that his election could signal an authoritarian turn.

A social media campaign called #EleNão (#NotHim) is the most recent example of women’s mobilisation against a politician who has called women ignorant, too ugly to rape and undeserving of equal pay.

Mr Bolsonaro, who has four sons and a daughter, called fathering a girl a “moment of weakness.”

“Not him because he’s macho, not him because he’s homophobic, not him because he’s racist, not him because he’s a throwback for our democracy,” popular singer Daniela Mercury declared in a weekend video, urging support for this weekend’s protests.

The artists’ manifesto doesn’t endorse a presidential candidate but expresses concern about a Bolsonaro presidency.

“We have known 20 years of shadows under the dictatorship,” the Democracy Yes manifesto read.

“It’s never unwarranted to remember how, throughout history and to this day, fascist, nazi leaders and many other autocratic regimes were first elected with the promise of rescuing the self-esteem and credibility of their nations before submitting them to the most varied authoritarian excesses.”

Mr Bolsonaro, who leads the polls with 28 per cent ahead of fast-improving Workers Party candidate Fernando Haddad, has openly praised Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship responsible for arbitrary arrests, torture, murder and forced disappearances. 

As a legislator, he dedicated his vote to impeach democratically elected president Dilma Rousseff to dictatorship-era torturer Colonel Carlos Brilhante as “the terror of Dilma Rousseff.”

Col Brilhante was convicted of torture and ran the detention centre where Ms Rousseff was tortured.

The far-right candidate has suggested that the dictatorship’s mistake was to torture people rather than kill them.

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