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THOUSANDS OF PROTESTERS yesterday stormed Brazil’s seat of power in scenes which have been compared to the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington two years ago.
The protesters, supporters of right-wing former president Jair Bolosonaro, gained access to the country’s National Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace before ransacking the buildings.
It came just a week after left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva was sworn in, having narrowly defeated Bolsonaro in October’s election.
But how exactly did the riot come about, and what role – if any – did Bolsonaro play in its creation?
Here’s what you need to know.
Thousands of people dressed in green and yellow and draped in the Brazilian flag flooding into Brasilia’s Three Powers Square yesterday afternoon. Lula was in the southeastern city of Araraquara visiting a region hit by severe floods at the time.
Bolsonarista terrorists broke down the police barrier and invaded the Congress ramp and threatened to occupy the chamber and the Senate. The Minister of Justice @FlavioDino announced that he is allowing the use of all federal forces against them.pic.twitter.com/Q3nbRhjfpV
— Nathália Urban (@UrbanNathalia) January 8, 2023
Footage posted on social media showed rioters breaking doors and windows to enter the Congress building, then streaming inside en masse, trashing lawmakers’ offices and using the sloped speaker’s dais on the Senate floor as a slide as they shouted insults directed at the absent lawmakers.
Protesters damaged artworks, historic objects, furniture and decorations as they rampaged through the buildings, according to Brazilian media reports.
One video showed a crowd outside pulling a policeman from his horse and beating him to the ground.
Police, who had established a security cordon around the square, fired tear gas in a bid to disperse the rioters – initially to no avail.
The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI), a journalists’ union, said at least five reporters were attacked, including an AFP photographer who was beaten by protesters and had his equipment stolen.
Police appeared noticeably slow to react – even after the arrival of more than 100 busses – leading many to ponder whether authorities had either simply ignored numerous warnings, underestimated the protesters’ strength, or had been somehow complicit.
Those protesting made it clear that they were supporters of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro in footage they filmed of themselves, which was posted or streamed online during the riot.
But the incident is not an isolated one. The hardline supporters have been protesting outside army bases calling for a military intervention to stop Lula from taking power since he won the presidential election with 50.9% of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 49.1%.
The Planalto Palace, considered an architectural jewel by late Oscar Niemeyer and home to .@LulaOficial, is being destroyed by deranged Bolsonaro followers, mockingly known in #Brazil as “Bolsominions” pic.twitter.com/s9HZtnLM6S
— Robert Valencia (@rvalentwit) January 8, 2023
Unwilling to accept the results of the vote, protesters erected camps in front of military installations in Brazil’s major cities and blocked highways in over half the country’s states.
Chants of “federal intervention” were heard at some demonstrations, while others became violent, resulting in people being injured.
A week before Lula’s inauguration, police arrested a man for allegedly placed explosives in a fuel truck near Brasilia’s airport. The man confessed that the plot was formed with other Bolsonaro supporters who had been protesting outside the army headquarters in Brasilia.
Bolsonaro’s supporters have consistently claimed that the election was fraudulent. However, in a report compiled by the country’s defence ministry found that there was no fraud or inconsistency in the electoral process.
Brazilians have used electronic voting since 1996 that security experts consider less secure than hand-marked paper ballots because they leave no auditable paper trail.
Brazil’s system is, however, closely scrutinised, and domestic authorities and international observers have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud.
In a tweet yesterday, Bolsonaro said peaceful protest is part of democracy, but vandalism and invasion of public buildings are “exceptions to the rule”.
He made no specific mention of the protesters’ actions in Brasilia, and rejected a claim from Lula that he incited the riots.
Bolsonaro had been stoking belief among his hardcore supporters that the country’s electronic voting system was prone to fraud, though he has never presented any evidence to support this claim.
- Manifestações pacíficas, na forma da lei, fazem parte da democracia. Contudo, depredações e invasões de prédios públicos como ocorridos no dia de hoje, assim como os praticados pela esquerda em 2013 e 2017, fogem à regra.
— Jair M. Bolsonaro 2️⃣2️⃣ (@jairbolsonaro) January 9, 2023
He has repeatedly said that election officials count votes in secret, suggesting they could manipulate results, and that he suspects hackers failed to steal the presidential election from him in 2018. Studies of the 2018 election found no evidence of voter fraud.
His son Eduardo Bolsonaro has also held several meetings with former US president Donald Trump, Trump’s longtime ally Steve Bannon and his senior campaign adviser, Jason Miller.
Results from Brazil’s election – the closest in more than three decades – were quickly recognised by politicians across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of governments around the world.
Since losing the election, Bolsonaro has neither conceded defeat nor claimed fraud, though he and his party submitted a request to nullify millions of votes that was swiftly dismissed.
The former president left the country two days before Lula’s inauguration and is thought to be in Florida.
According to Reuters, he is currently under investigation in Brazil for at least four criminal probes, including allegations he leaned on the federal police to protect his sons, spread known electoral falsehoods, and promoted the spread of misinformation from a troll farm in his presidential office.
Over 300 protesters have been arrested so far, with authorities promising to crack down on those who attended the riots.
Lula has condemned the riots as a “fascist” attack and has signed a decree declaring a federal intervention in Brasilia, giving his government special powers over the local police force to restore law and order in the capital.
Justice minister Flavio Dino said the acts amounted to terrorism and coup-mongering and that police have begun tracking those who paid for the buses that transported protesters to the capital.
Brasilia Governor Ibaneis Rocha has sacked the capital’s public security chief, Anderson Torres, who previously served as Bolsonaro’s justice minister.
Rocha was in turn ordered to relinquish his post for 90 days by Federal Supreme Court magistrate Alexandre de Moraes.
The attorney general’s office said it had asked the Supreme Court to issue arrest warrants for Torres “and all other public officials responsible for acts and omissions” leading to the unrest.
It also asked the high court to authorize the use of “all public security forces” to take back federal buildings and disperse anti-government protests nationwide.
Contains reporting from the Press Association and © AFP 2023
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One big problem in Ireland (Not entirely related to this article) is women with kids are encouraged to stay at home and have to depend on their husbands as creche fees are absolutely absurd. The price to put 2 children into my local creche is €1800 per month. This means that skilled women (in some cases men) are staying at home!
In Belgium they are subsidized so that they can work. Even a house cleaner is subsidized. This kind of system stops women having to stay at home to look after the kids and carry out house work and most importantly getting bullied by an unfair husband!
I don’t think subsidies are the way to go here. people here have this ‘the state should pay for my lifestyle choices’ mentality. Isn’t ireland broke? Why not pay a nanny to look after the kids when you are at work instead? have you a family support network, whereby your parents could help out?
Why didn’t you think of the costs a child involves before you had 2 children in the first place? people in westernized welfare state countries seem to just have kids and expect everyone else to pay for it. This doesn’t happen in the US, and it sure as heck doesn’t happen in any realistic state that doesn’t want to end up in the hands of the IMF.
No Lizzy.
Subsidies are the way to go if it means skilled women are going to be working and paying taxes, this will help Ireland. There are women with PHD’s that are staying at home to look after the kids as its not viable to put them into a creche. This is an awful waste of good skill.
No I don’t have a family support network, My parents are gone and my siblings have emigrated.
Also I don’t have 2 kids, I’m thinking about having kids so I suppose I did think of the costs a child involves as I went away and investigated it.
I was simply stating that the system that exists in Belgium encourages women to work and put their children into childcare rather than depending on their husband just in case the partnership falls apart.
It’s a bit of a tangent, but outside of medicine, I’ve never met anyone with a PhD who created anything
On the issue itself; Subsidies = cash, right? Why not make childcare tax deductible? “The people” abuse free cash just as surely as “the politicians.”
Wrong Chuck, in this case Subsidies does NOT= cash!
In Belgium is costs around €250 to send your child to a creche for the month, It costs this little as it is subsidised by the government. This is certainly the case in Kortrijk.
People pay a lot more tax over there alright but their system seems to work alot better than ours when you count in all the subsidies.
@ Lizzie
Clueless comments really.
Many countries subsidize child care, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Germany, France and many others.
@ Chuck
“I’ve never met anyone with a PhD who created anything”
Astonishing. Who do you think develops pharmaceuticals? Medical devices? Computers? etc etc etc
“It’s a bit of a tangent, but outside of medicine, I’ve never met anyone with a PhD who created anything”
Read the 7th, 8th, 9th & 10th words there…….
I cannot believe it was only in 1990 that rape within a marriage was ok, if a guy had of tried it he would had swiftly got to meet my friend the baseball bat, I know some one who was raped within a marriage and it changed the person she was and the relationship she had with her child was destroyed
No offense to the Irish generation above me, but you guys have so much crap that you should be ashamed of. On a regular basis I’m thankful that I didn’t have to live into that kind of Ireland.
And in fairness I’ve little doubt the same applied to alot of other small countries too.
We still have a long way to go but we’re making progress.
don’t be so sure that the current generation is without it’s faults and skeletons in it’s closets.
It’s great for you to look back and say the past generations had so much crap but alot of this continous and people in their 20′s now are just as capable of doing the same stuff that people did 40-50 years ago and they do.
True, but at least now,with Internet, immigration and improves technology answer education we’re more influenced by the outside and don’t hold onto ideas and assumptions about how things should be as much.
But yea I’ve little doubt the next generation will look back at massive aspects of our lives and wonder “what the hell were they thinking “.
Adrian your living in a dream world with that reproachful look you throw at the past Irish, and the self congratulation of the present. It’s only because of outside influences that Ireland has OSTENSIBLY changed… the EU, internet and the piles of money invested here which allowed thousands travel and form their own identities free of toxic influences form the collective here.
Some things have changed, but we haven’t moved on that much as a nation, despite outside and technological advances. Still ruled by the corrupt, still women get less pay, less opportunites, still lots of pressure to conform, still poor people and the vulnerable are raped in many other ways then sexually,
and if you haven’t occassionaly fought to change the system that is here, you are just as guilty as anyone in the past. if you have, good on ya!
Well done to the women who have come forward with this story, hopefully you are healing now after all the abuse and shame on the men of this country who did this damage to there wives and families , thankfully we are a society who now can get help with most things and move forward……..well done to OWN try and keep going even though you have little funding .
Thumbs up if you blame the church!
What a dumb comment! Sigh….
I am ashamed of being a man
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