A supporter of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro during the attack on the presidency headquarters this Sunday in Brasilia ADRIANO MACHADO (Portal)
Thousands of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have plunged the country into the worst crisis since the end of the military dictatorship 38 years ago. A group of radicals stormed the headquarters of Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidency in Brasilia with a clearly coup-like goal: to call for army intervention to remove from power Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who left office a week ago started. The police managed to regain control of the three powers after hours of chaos, from which remains not only a trace of destruction and acts of vandalism, but also a deep wound in the heart of democracy.
Lula, who had to order federal intervention in Brasilia to stop the attack, blamed the “fascists” and, without naming him, referred to Bolsonaro for inciting rejection of the election result and creating a climate of intolerance ahead of the inauguration of the new one government had fueled. The former president’s party leadership immediately distanced itself from the events, but he waited several hours before speaking from Florida, where he had gone so as not to witness the transfer of power. Only after the attack failed did he assert that “penetrating public buildings was beyond the norm,” denying the allegations that implicated him in the attempt. They were late words, petty given the seriousness of events and which show once again the danger that Bolsonaro has always posed to democracy.
This support for his most radical supporters, often expressed with ambiguous rhetoric, shaped his speech for at least two months when Lula defeated him in the second round. The concentrations and mobilizations of far-right militants were just a warning, and although the inauguration ceremony on Sunday, January 1, took place without major incident, the situation that Sunday turned into a fateful day for all Democrats, resulting in about 150 arrests. . . Ultimately, behind what happened is not only Bolsonaro’s inability to accept defeat, but the poison of a vocal far right that is unable to play the democratic rules of the game in the United States, Brazil and elsewhere accept and seeks to seize power by any means, including brute force. The episode witnessed this Sunday in Brasilia, two years after the attack on the Capitol, should serve as a reminder of the enormous danger posed by these radical movements and of the need for democratic forces to remain united and avoid to give them oxygen.
The case of Brazil shows that, despite Lula’s triumph, Bolsonarismo is still deeply rooted in certain areas of society. Something similar happened in the United States in 2020 after Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden. And if the frightening images of Brasilia resonate with the echoes of January 6, 2021, the parallelism between the two attacks also shows that condemning the events is not about half measures. The international community unequivocally rejected the attack. It’s an important support that Lula needs to make the most of, knowing he’ll only suffer stab wounds from Bolsonaro and his supporters. It’s not an easy path for him. His predecessor left a broken country, and this Sunday’s very serious crisis has only deepened that fracture. To overcome this, Lula must enforce the law and punish the guilty without palliative measures, but also appeal to the values that have allowed him to win the elections and move forward on the path that allows Brazilians to experience democratic normality to restore.