Brazil's outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro asked participants in what he said were "legitimate" protests to "unblock the roads" and demonstrate elsewhere Wednesday as they push for military intervention to keep him in power.
The far-right leaders' supporters are rallying in front of military installations in Brazil's major cities and have blocked highways in more than half the country's states, reports AFP.
The demonstrators, unwilling to accept the results of Bolsonaro's Sunday election defeat to leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have now clogged autoroutes and caused nationwide disruptions for three straight days.
"I want to make an appeal to them: Unblock the roads," Bolsonaro said late Wednesday. The blockages do "not seem to me to be part of legitimate demonstrations."
"Other demonstrations that are taking place throughout Brazil in squares... are part of the democratic game. They are welcome," he added.
After days of silence, Bolsonaro on Tuesday gave a short speech in which he neither accepted defeat nor congratulated Lula on his weekend win, although his chief of staff took the podium afterward to say the president had authorized the transition to a new government.
"Federal intervention now!" chanted some of the thousands who gathered in front of the Southeastern Military Command in the country's biggest city, Sao Paulo.
"We want a federal intervention because we demand our freedom. We do not admit that a thief governs us," Angela Cosac, 70, told AFP, alluding to the fact that Lula served time in prison for corruption.
The day of mobilization was marred by violence, however. At a roadblock near the town of Mirassol in Sao Paulo state, a motorist drove into a crowd of demonstrators, injuring at least seven people, according to CNN.
Some supporters of Bolsonaro, himself a retired army captain, made threatening gestures to journalists in Sao Paulo, where crowds of demonstrators swelled later in the day.
In the southern state of Santa Catarina, protesters were filmed on Wednesday raising Nazi salutes.
Thousands meanwhile gathered in the capital, Brasilia, chanting "civil resistance," while in rainy downtown Rio de Janeiro, demonstrators were filmed by Brazilian media shouting: "Lula, thief, your place is in prison."
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