'Stop the Steal' leader Ali Alexander calls for a military coup in Brazil to intervene in its presidential election after Jair Bolsonaro's defeat

• Far-right activist Ali Alexander is pushing election conspiracy theories in Brazil.
• He called on the Brazilian military to start a coup and deny the election defeat of Jair Bolsonaro.

Ali Alexander, the far-right activist who organized the "Stop the Steal" rally held just before the Capitol riot, is now egging on discussion of a coup in Brazil, calling on the Brazilian military to intervene in the election defeat of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro.

"Take to the streets, brothers of Brazil! Military standby. Peacefully and patriotically!" Alexander wrote on the social-media app TruthSocial on Sunday evening.

Alexander called for an "audit" on Brazil's presidential election and for the military to "arrest any bad guys on either side," echoing the election denial rhetoric spread by MAGA conspiracy theorists in recent years.

Bolsonaro, a divisive leader who has been president of Brazil since January 2019, lost his position by a narrow margin to leftist candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday.

Before the race concluded, concerns were already growing that Bolsonaro would lean into baseless election fraud claims if he were to lose — just as former President Donald Trump and his supporters have done in the US.

Bolsonaro had earlier told reporters that Brazil's electoral process was "unbalanced" against him, while his son, Flávio Bolsonaro, called the defeated president a victim of "the greatest election fraud ever seen," per The Guardian.

Alexander's claims on TruthSocial go one step further, with the conspiracy theorist attempting to baselessly mix President Joe Biden into his narrative.

He posted a screenshot of a Foreign Policy article, which summarized a comprehensive diplomatic effort by US leaders to pressure Brazilian authorities into upholding Brazil's democracy and election results. Alexander misleadingly used the screenshot to support his baseless claim that the Biden administration rigged Brazil's election.

Worries that Bolsonaro may instigate a coup to cement his power in Brazil stretch back to at least September 2021, when a group of local leftist leaders published an open letter warning of their suspicions that he was planning to transition a political rally into a hostile takeover — modeled after the Capitol riot.

Alexander was banned from Twitter, Venmo, and Paypal in January 2021. Twitter said it banned him over tweets that glorify violence, while PayPal — which owns Venmo — said it banned him for violating its policies.