US President Joe Biden’s defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, speaking at an Americas-wide defence conference in Brazil, where military loyalty to the constitution has become a central issue ahead of the October 2 presidential election, said militaries should be under civilian control. Al Jazeera reports that Austin, a retired US Army general, just two days after Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro formally launched his re-election bid by saying: “the army is on our side”, stressed that “the more we deepen our democracies, the more we deepen our security”.
