A turbulent start to 2023 …

Brazil is used to being in a constant state of chaos. The last four years have seen the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, spiraling inflation, and rising hunger and poverty rates. All this under the presidency of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, who seemed incapable of making a single public appearance without delivering a shocking and controversial sound bite. 

All of this led to the certainty of stress and turmoil during the 2022 general elections. Political violence peaked, and the defeat of Jair Bolsonaro led his most radical supporters to hold putschist protests all over the country, demanding the military step in to cancel the results of the democratic vote. There was even a failed plot to detonate a bomb at Brasília Airport. 

Yet, 2023 was around the corner, and it promised respite. Pro-Bolsonaro protests appeared to have tailed off, and Lula would take the presidential sash on January 1 and govern throughout a much-needed period of political calm… Right? Not quite.

Lula’s New Year’s Day inauguration was indeed a peaceful event, but it only took a week for the proverbial to hit the fan. On January 8, pro-Bolsonaro radicals rioted in Brasília, going toe-to-toe with unprepared security forces, storming government buildings, and trashing public property, creating truly unprecedented scenes in the Brazilian capital. 

Later that month, journalists uncovered a true humanitarian catastrophe inside the Yanomami indigenous reserve in Brazil’s Amazon, where people had been left to starve by previous government authorities, and the proliferation of illegal gold mining had left indigenous communities on the brink of survival.

And then, The Brazilian Report and other outlets uncovered a series of events indicating coup plots in 2022, which will no doubt be picked apart in the press, Congress, and courts for months to come.

There’s a commonly held belief that the year doesn’t start in Brazil until the end of Carnival, the four-day festival kicking off this weekend.

If 2023 hasn’t even started yet, what’s next? 

Go deeper: Today, we recommend our Explaining Brazil podcast, the only way to remain up to date amid the turbulence!

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