Supporters of ex-President Bolsonaro storm Brazil’s Congress
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The incidents, which recalled the Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol, come just a week after leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in on Jan. 1
By Doha Madani | Chaos struck Brazil’s capital on Sunday, when supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro attacked the country’s Congress by climbing on top of its roof and breaking the glass in its windows.
Other demonstrators were gathering outside the presidential palace and Supreme Court, although it was not immediately clear whether they had managed to break into the buildings.
The incidents, which recalled the Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol, come just a week after leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in on Jan. 1.
Lula da Silva held a televised address Sunday where he authorized federal intervention within the Federal District until the end of January.
He also tweeted his statements, calling those who attacked Congress “fascists,” according to translated version of the tweets.
“Whoever did this will be found and punished. Democracy guarantees the right to free expression, but it also requires people to respect institutions,” the president tweeted. “There is no precedent in the history of the country what they did today. For that they must be punished.”
The president accused the mob of taking advantage of the quiet Sunday as his administration was still transitioning into government. He then took direct aim at Bolsonaro.
“And you know that there are several speeches by the former president encouraging this,” Lula da Silva said. “And this is also his responsibility and the parties that supported him.”
U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., tweeted about the chaos in Brazil’s capital on Sunday, drawing an explicit comparison to former president Donald Trump’s supporters.
“Democracies of the world must act fast to make clear there will be no support for right-wing insurrectionists storming the Brazilian Congress,” Raskin wrote. “These fascists modeling themselves after Trump’s Jan. 6 rioters must end up in the same place: prison.”
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador tweeted his support to Brazil’s new regime Sunday, calling the event a “coup attempt.”
“Reprehensible and undemocratic the coup attempt by the conservatives in Brazil encouraged by the oligarchic power leadership, their spokespersons and fanatics,” he wrote. “Lula is not alone, he has the support of the progressive forces of his country, Mexico, the American continent and the world.”
Bolsonaro supporters have been protesting against Lula’s electoral win since Oct. 30, blocking roads, setting vehicles on fires and gathering outside military buildings, asking armed forces to intervene.
Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court rejected voter fraud claims from Bolsonaro and his party in November. The justice who made the ruling, Alexandre de Moraes, described the legal filing as a bad faith litigation.
“Democracy is not an easy, exact or predictable path, but it is the only path and the Judiciary does not tolerate criminal and anti-democratic manifestations that attack the electoral process,” de Moraes wrote in his ruling.
Bolsonaro’s party was fined about $4 million by de Moraes.
Lula da Silva won against incumbent Bolsonaro in a runoff election in a narrow majority of 50.84 percent.
Bolsonaro did not immediately concede the race, and throughout his campaign sowed seeds of doubt about election security to his supporters through misinformation. He made repeated assertions that Brazil’s electronic voting machines were prone to fraud, with no evidence to support his unfounded claims.
