Flavio Bolsonaro rally targets Brazil court corruption

Thousands of Brazilians rallied in Sao Paulo on Monday to support right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro as he criticised corruption in Brazil's courts during independence day celebrations.

Monitors at the University of Sao Paulo put attendance at about 28,500 people on Avenida Paulista. Some people at the rally demanded the resignation of Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes.

Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of jailed former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, is running against leftist incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in October elections.

Moraes presided over the case that convicted Jair Bolsonaro of plotting a coup. Flavio Bolsonaro has focused on recently released messages sent by banker Daniel Vorcaro to a number attributed to Moraes. Vorcaro, who has been charged with fraud, apparently asked Moraes for legal help days before his arrest last year.

Moraes's responses to Vorcaro, if any, were not included in the release, and Moraes has not publicly commented on the texts.

“I am going to work to restore the credibility of the Brazilian judiciary... my candidacy is a protest,” Flavio Bolsonaro told the crowd. He also said: “Lula is responsible for the moral chaos that Brazil is going through today.”

Flavio Bolsonaro asked Vorcaro to finance a film about his jailed father and denies wrongdoing.

A Quaest poll published Monday put Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro at 41 percent each in a possible second round. Lula, 80, took part in a military parade in Brasilia for independence day. A day before the holiday, Lula said Brazil was a sovereign country and that “no foreign ruler” had the right to tell it who it could buy from or sell to, without explicitly naming the United States, which imposed tariffs on Brazil in July.