The highest authorities of the Republic of Brazil were urgently convened by recently sworn President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this Monday, a day after a mob of supporters of his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro attacked the three powers in Brasilia. The 77-year-old President met with Supreme Court President Rosa Weber, Congress President Arthur Lira and Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco at the Planalto Presidential Palace. Lira is a Bolsonaro ally and joined the unanimous condemnation of the attack by the highest officials in the institutions. Defense Minister José Múcio and the recently appointed chiefs of the armed forces were also summoned. After the meeting, the highest representatives of the three powers released a joint note on Sunday in which they declared: “We reject the acts of terrorism, vandalism, crime and coup”.
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In addition, the governor of the Federal District (DF), Ibaneis Rocha, was suspended from his post for three months for failing to prevent the extremists who had attacked the headquarters of the three branches of the state from passing through. Lula is later scheduled to meet with the governors of the 26 states after making a phone call to Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa, according to his official agenda.
On the ninth day of his new term, Lula faces the greatest challenge Brazilian democracy has faced since the end of the dictatorship in 1985. It is the culmination of months of tensions fueled by far-right ex-President Bolsonaro and reflects the extreme polarization that is dividing Brazil in half.
The Bolsonaristas, dressed in the colors of the country’s flag (yellow and green), emulated the Trumpists to stage a tropical version of the attack on the Washington Capitol two years ago, with the difference that in Brasilia the institutions were not in session, that it there were no deaths and it was not a surprise but an attack that Democrats had feared for months. In the case of Brazil, security forces had regained control of the three buildings three hours later.
Thousands of Bolsonaristas, whom the former president has convinced that October’s elections were stolen, have invaded the Congress, Presidency and Supreme Court, centered around the Plaza de los Tres Poderes designed by architect Óscar Niemeyer. The defeated president lukewarmly condemned the attack by the most radical sections of his supporters, whom he has encouraged for months to distrust the electoral system, the recount and the Supreme Court. When the occupation of political power was still in progress, Lula accused his predecessor of instigating “fascist vandals”.
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The attackers destroyed furniture and artwork, shattered glass facades and flooded Congress before being cleared by police. They are very valuable pieces, part of the modernist heritage that Niemeyer designed when he designed together with the urban planner Lucio Costa Brasilia, inaugurated in 1960 in the center of the country. One of the reasons for moving the capital, Rio de Janeiro, inland was to make hypothetical protests against the authorities more difficult and to protect them from a possible attack like Sunday’s. The attack happened in the same place where a celebratory crowd of 300,000 people enfolded Lula along with dozens of foreign heads of state a week earlier as he returned to power for a third term.
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On Monday morning, the police cleared the putsch camp set up in front of the army headquarters in Brasilia. According to army spokesman Colonel Marcos André Benzecry, between 1,200 and 1,400 people were arrested for identification. The Bolsonaristas were not arrested but taken to a location where they will be identified and searched. “This is where the investigation begins to see if they have anything to do with the vandalism files,” Benzecry said on Sunday.
A Supreme Court judge ordered the dissolution of all camps set up two months ago after the elections by radical Bolsonaro supporters who questioned the official result, which gave Lula at least one victory against Bolsonaro (51% against Bolsonaro) . %). A few days ago, the new defense minister estimated that around 5,000 people took part in the protests scattered across the country. The decision was signed by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the highest court’s most active judge, who also ordered the 90-day suspension of federal district governor Ibaneis Rocha, an ally of Bolsonaro who knew about the march to the institutions and he was the head of the DF military police, which did not cut off the extremists.
The now-ousted governor apologized to Lula on Sunday after removing the security minister, a former Bolsonaro police minister who is on vacation in Florida, where the former president and far-right leader is also in attendance. Bolsonaro traveled to Orlando two days before the end of his term to avoid being replaced by his nemesis Lula. The moment the new president was sworn in, Bolsonaro lost his immunity as president and can therefore be formally prosecuted in any of the numerous investigations launched against him.
The attack was still in progress when Lula, in his capacity as head of state, ordered the federal intervention in public safety in the DF, meaning that the federal government should take command of the security forces, which until then had been dependent on the government governor. “This genocide is fueling this [el ataque] over networks [sociales] from Miami,” the CEO said in an impromptu press conference.
Many of the invaders reached the political heart of Brazil in a hundred buses and quietly, even escorted by military police, walked out of the coup plot built at the headquarters of the Army General Headquarters, another spectacular Niemeyer building nine kilometers from those attacked Building.
Security forces arrested around 300 people accused of involvement in the invasion, whom the Brazilian press was already defining as “terrorists,” an unusual term in this country, until police on Christmas Eve arrested a Bolsonaro member accused of a failed bomb attack would.
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