Star Metro - Bolsonaro leads controversial bicentennial celebration in Brazil

Brazil is deeply divided heading into October's elections, with Bolsonaro trailing in the polls to leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva but looking determined to flex his muscle with an Independence Day show of strength, including military parades in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro and rallies by his supporters across the country.

Grinning and waving in the presidential sash alongside first lady Michelle, Bolsonaro watched a procession of soldiers and tanks flood the Esplanade of Ministries in the Brazilian capital, as military aircraft buzzed overhead to cheers from a huge sea of spectators decked out in the green and yellow of the flag.

In Rio, Bolsonaro backers flooded the avenue along the city's iconic Copacabana beach, as throngs prepared massive motorcycle and jet-ski processions -- two of the president's favorite hobbies.

"This is a unique moment, different from any election in the past. Brazil is facing huge tension because they're trying to install communism, with help from the courts," said one Bolsonaro supporter, 53-year-old businessman Claudio Berrios, draped in the Brazilian flag and sporting a military-style camouflage shirt.

Bolsonaro's open hostility toward the Supreme Court and electoral authorities was a recurring theme.

"Bolsonaro, activate the military to depose the Supreme Court," said one banner in Rio, carried by 64-year-old supporter Suely Ferreira.

"Our country is being ruined by the (high) court's dictatorship," she told AFP. "We love our president. Everyone I know supports him. He's going to win. There's no way he could lose."

- 'Tense, potentially violent' -

Last year on Brazil's national day, Bolsonaro caused controversy with a fiery speech saying "only God" could remove him from office and vowing to stop heeding rulings by Supreme Court Justice and top electoral official Alexandre de Moraes, whom the president considers an enemy.

That September 7, Bolsonaro supporters broke through a security cordon in Brasilia on the eve of the festivities and threatened to invade the Supreme Court.

"September 7 will be politicized by definition this year, coming in the home stretch of the campaign," said political scientist Paulo Baia of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

"It will be tense and potentially violent," he told AFP.

Critics accuse the president of blurring the line between his official duties and his campaign with the festivities.

In Rio, a group of pastors from Brazil's powerful Evangelical Christian community has rented a stage in Copacabana where the commander in chief is expected to address the crowd.

Donations have also poured in from another largely pro-Bolsonaro group, Brazil's giant agribusiness sector, to help fund Independence Day events across the country.

The Bolsonaro camp has been highly active on social networks, urging supporters to turn out en masse for the day.

Bolsonaro's congressman son Eduardo raised eyebrows on Twitter Monday by calling on Brazilians "who have legally purchased guns" -- a contingent his father has sought to expand with aggressive gun-control rollbacks -- to enlist as "volunteers for Bolsonaro."

Such comments have added to fears of violence around the election if Bolsonaro, who regularly attacks Brazil's voting system as fraud-ridden -- without evidence -- follows in the footsteps of his political role model, former US president Donald Trump, and refuses to accept the result.

Lula, Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010, apparently plans to keep a low profile Wednesday, but has rallies scheduled for Thursday and a meeting with Evangelicals, a key voting bloc, on Friday.

K.Evans--SMC