Explaining Brazil #227: One week in, Lula already faces major test

Ever since the 2021 Capitol riots in the U.S., we at The Brazilian Report have repeatedly warned of the risk of a similar incident taking place on home soil, in the event of far-right then-President Jair Bolsonaro losing last year’s election.

On Sunday, two years and two days after rioters attacked the Capitol building in Washington D.C., Brazil got its own January 6 — or, more accurately, January 8.

Hordes of radical Bolsonaro supporters stormed the seats of government in Brasília, invading the Congress building, Planalto Palace, and the Supreme Court.

Sparse deployments of local police personnel could not hold rioters off as they desecrated federal buildings, smashing windows, defacing walls, trashing furniture, stealing and destroying priceless pieces of art — and, in some cases, urinating and defecating on public property.

The disorderly mob was cleared out hours later, and arrests were in the thousands. Meanwhile, Brazil is left to literally pick up the pieces from a truly astonishing and unprecedented day in the country’s history.

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Background reading on the Brasília riots:

• Watch our live broadcast on Sunday’s events. Editor-in-chief Gustavo Ribeiro and Brasília correspondent Cedê Silva comment on the attacks on Brazil’s public buildings as they unfold. Special guest: Mario Sérgio Lima, senior Brazil analyst at Medley Advisors.
• The biggest assault on Brazilian democratic institutions since the end of the military dictatorship was jaw-dropping. But not exactly surprising. The Brasília riots were a long time in the making.
• Lula issued a decree placing Brasília’s security apparatus under federal intervention. We also explained who Ricardo Cappelli, Brasília’s public security interventor, is.
• Congress and the courts have also reacted. Senators push for an inquiry to scrutinize the storming of the Brazilian capital. Meanwhile, one justice has suspended the Brasília governor from office and ordered the arrest of his former top security official for malicious negligence.
• Even after the Brasília riots, far-right radicals tried to block oil refineries and are believed to have damaged power transmission towers in multiple parts of the country in an effort to drive the Brazilian economy to the ground and destabilize the country.

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• #brasília
• #government
• #violence