RIO DE JANEIRO, March 21, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Despite his wide-ranging legal woes, far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro crisscrosses Brazil campaigning, received by rapt crowds seemingly unbothered by claims he helped stoke an attempted coup.

Like Donald Trump in America, 69-year-old Bolsonaro has retained a core of radical supporters in a deeply divided country even as the accusations and investigations against him multiply.

But unlike his political role model, the man nicknamed "Tropical Trump" cannot be reelected anytime soon -- Bolsonaro was barred from public office for eight years for baselessly trashing Brazil's voting system ahead of the 2022 elections he lost.

Despite the risk of being charged and arrested at any moment, Bolsonaro has remained a key campaigner for candidates of the rightwing Liberal Party ahead of October municipal elections.

For weeks he has traveled the vast country, posting videos on social media of throngs of fans greeting him at airports or mobbing his car.
Bolsonaro's popularity is undeniably robust among supporters of his "Bibles, bullets and beef" political philosophy.

An opinion poll last month showed him lagging only 3.1 percentage points behind incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in 2022 by the narrowest of margins.

Political analyst Mayra Goulart said Bolsonaro remains a "symbol" for Brazilians who yearn to return to conservative values and feel shunned by the political elite -- stoked by an effective social media machine that spews out "alternative" information.

- 'Not afraid' -

Like Trump, with whose single term overlapped with his, Bolsonaro claims to be a victim of "political persecution," even as the accusations against him keep stacking up.

Earlier this month, former senior military staff linked Bolsonaro to an illegal bid to stay in power after losing to Lula.

He is also being probed for allegedly inciting the January 2023 storming of the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in riots reminiscent of the 2021 invasion of the US Capitol by Trump's backers.

Just this week, police recommended that vaccine-skeptic Bolsonaro be charged for allegedly forging a Covid inoculation certificate for travel purposes.

He is also under investigation for allegedly misappropriating gifts received from other nations, such as jewelry offered by Saudi Arabia.

Bolsonaro "was persecuted from the day he took office," Marcos Vinicius Chagas, a 48-year-old businessman, told AFP at a recent political rally attended by the ex-president in Rio de Janeiro.

Most of the crowd wore the green and yellow of Brazil's national football team, appropriated by Bolsonaro's far-right fans. As they sang the national, some were reduced to tears.

Though the rally was for mayoral candidate Alexandre Ramagem, it was clear who held the real power.

"They come down on me because I am a stone in the shoe on the left," Bolsonaro told tens of thousands gathered to hear him speak.

"I could be in another country, but I decided to come back here with all the risks. I'm not afraid of any trial, as long as the judges are impartial."

Bolsonaro was unsuccessful in a first appeal against the Superior Electoral Tribunal decision to prohibit him from holding office, which effectively rendered him ineligible to run in the next presidential election in 2026.

In the past year he has been subjected to multiple raids, withdrawal of his passport, and being barred from contacting a number of political allies.