Hundreds of supporters of ex-President Bolsonaro broke into government buildings in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, on Sunday. The action was not really surprising.
Brasilia – Sunday a week ago, thousands of Brazilians celebrated a “Festival of Democracy” in front of the National Congress, the new President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had taken over the official business in a symbolic act. The optimism did not last long.
A week later, Sunday lunchtime again, there is nothing left of the peaceful celebration mood. Hundreds of supporters, many of far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the National Congress, Presidential Palace and of Brazil Supreme Court in the capital Brasilia. According to television images from the Brazilian broadcaster O Globo, many of them wore the Brazilian national colors of green and yellow. They destroyed art objects, windows, stole a copy of the Constitution and other documents. They held the two buildings under control for hours before the police and security forces were able to evacuate the rioters from the buildings. A picture of the devastation can be seen in the television pictures of the hours that followed.
Around 1,500 Bolsonaro supporters were provisionally arrested on Monday. Security forces cleared a camp in front of the armed forces’ headquarters in the capital and temporarily detained the activists, the Justice Ministry said. The people were taken away in around 40 buses, reported the news portal “G1”. Camps run by Bolsonaro supporters were also broken up in other cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and arrests were also made there.
Brazil: Riots were foreseeable
“The action was predictable and was stimulated by the ex-president,” says Carolina Botelho, a political scientist at the University of São Paulo, in an interview IPPEN.MEDIA. The actions probably didn’t really come as a surprise to anyone. The extreme right Jair Bolsonaro had the end of October very close runoff lost for the presidency against his challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Jair Bolsonaro never acknowledged his electoral defeat, flying to Florida shortly before Lula’s inauguration on January 1. Beforehand, Bolsonaro had repeatedly called on his supporters to fight and resist Lula. On the day of the riots, it took him several hours to condemn the attacks on government buildings in Brasilia. “For the past four years, he’s incited his followers to do just that,” says political scientist Botelho. Bolsonaro has systematically weakened confidence in Brazilian democracy and cast doubt on the electoral system.
Brazil: Similarities and differences to the storming of the Capitol
The parallels to Storming of the Capitol in the United States almost exactly two years ago, on January 6, 2021, impose. But the political scientist Botelho also sees important differences. “Here in Brazil, not just one building was attacked, but the buildings of all three pillars of power,” she explains. In addition, the armed forces and the police in the United States had clearly opposed the putschists, but this was not the case in Brazil. From their point of view, the security forces supported the attacks on government buildings at least indirectly by not intervening.
Since there were so many indications of possible escalations surrounding the inauguration of the new president in Brazil, the question arises as to why the security forces were not better prepared. “Hundreds of buses arrived in Brasilia over the weekend. How can you not notice that?” Botelho asks himself. Despite the announced protests, only a few security forces were on site on Sunday, and they reacted rather slowly to the storming of government buildings. This has consequences: Ibaneis Rocha, the governor of Brasilia, has since been suspended from office for 90 days because the police forces were very hesitant to react to his responsibility.
“We’re talking about terrorists here”
President Lula, who was in São Paulo on Sunday, strongly condemned the invaders’ actions. There has never been anything like it “in the history of the country”, he said in a video speech. The action was carried out by “rioters and fascists”. He announced that he would identify and apprehend those behind the action. “In the name of defending democracy, we will not be authoritarian towards anyone, but we will also not be lukewarm towards anyone,” Lula told Brazilian television after meeting more than 20 governors in Brasilia on Monday. “We’re going to investigate this and find the people who funded it.”
During Monday there were further protests in other parts of Brazil, for example in São Paulo roads were blocked and blockades were set on fire. “Anyone involved in the storming of government buildings should go to jail,” says political scientist Carolina Botelho. How things will continue in Brazil in the coming days is still open. Past protests by Bolsonaro supporters have shown that the protests usually subside quickly if the authorities crack down, says Botelho. “So there is reason to believe that the situation is calming down,” she says. “But no one can know for sure, we’re talking about terrorists here.”
#talking #terrorists