Tag: jair bolsonaro

‘Command your troops, damn it!’ How a series of security failures opened a path to insurrection in Brazil | CNN

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CNN
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A sea of people, draped in the yellow and green of the Brazilian flag, surge onto the roof of the country’s modernist congressional building in the capital Brasilia, a video shared on social media shows.

In the foreground, officers from the military police of Brazil’s Federal District, which includes Brasilia, can be seen standing, chatting or filming the crowds in the distance.

Their calm belies the chaos unfolding on January 8. For around four hours, thousands of far-right supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed all three branches of Brazil’s government – Congress, the Supreme Court, and presidential palace – overwhelming security forces and calling for the leftist incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to be ousted.

The violence has shocked the country, with many wanting answers as to how so many people managed to enter some of the most highly securitized buildings in the country, with practically no resistance. Questions are mounting as to whether members of the security forces tasked with protecting the area and their leaders were just overstretched, incompetent or even actively assisted the protesters.

Top Brazilian officials say that pre-agreed security plans were not carried out on the day.

CNN has analyzed a series of videos and livestreams posted on social media to explore the security failures that allowed an insurrection to take place with such extraordinary ease and found that some officers appeared friendly to the rioters, while many others seem woefully underprepared for the angry mob. CNN has not identified and spoken to the officers in the videos.

Videos show some police officers standing and watching the protestors as they stormed Congress, one even filmed the events. Credit: YouTube, Twitter and Telegram.

Authorities investigating the riots, like the Supreme Court, have pointed fingers at officials in Brasilia, and several Federal District security chiefs have been fired or issued with arrest warrants for alleged collusion since the Sunday riots.

“The Brasilia police neglected [the attack threat], Brasilia’s intelligence neglected it,” Lula claimed one day after the siege. He said that from the footage it was easy to see “police officers talking to the attackers. There was an explicit connivance of the police with the demonstrators.”

Suspicions of “connivance” have been fueled by his predecessor Bolsonaro’s close relationship with the military during his presidency, filling his then-cabinet with military chiefs. In the weeks leading up to the siege, supporters of the ex-leader and former army captain – who never explicitly conceded his election loss in October – camped outside army barracks across Brazil, calling for a military intervention to overturn Lula’s victory.

Bolsonaro has made false claims of election fraud, sowing doubt in the legitimacy of the election. He left for Florida more than a week before the insurrection.

Lula on Thursday also accused some people in the armed forces of complicity. “There were many people complicit in this. There were many from the (military police), many from the armed forces complicit,” he said during a press conference.

The Brazilian president said he doesn’t think of the events of January 8 as a “coup” but as a “smaller thing, a band of crazy people who haven’t realized that the election is over.”

The military police of the Federal District have not responded to CNN’s questions about the alleged security failures of their forces. Nor has the Army Command in Brasilia – which has yet to make a public statement on the riots.

Videos taken on January 8 suggest a reduced security presence compared to Lula’s inauguration a week before, at the same government complex, when more than 8,000 troops from military and civil forces were deployed.

On January 8, there were just 365 military police officers working in the area. After Lula authorized a federal intervention at around 6 p.m. local that evening, another 2,913 were summoned, a caretaker Federal District spokesperson told CNN. The leadership of the office has changed since the January 8 riots.

The army and civil police forces did not respond to CNN’s request for information on how many army troops and police forces were deployed to the area on Sunday.

The military police are investigating the events on January 8 and “will start procedures to investigate” the alleged conduct of “police agents who behaved differently from (how) they were supposed to,” Ricardo Cappelli, the caretaker head of security for the Federal District of Brasilia, who got the role Sunday after his predecessor was fired, said this week.

Sunday’s protests had been openly organized online days before and intelligence services were aware of their plans. Telegram conversations seen by CNN show people messaging as early as January 5 about their intentions to storm Brazil’s Congress.

One post mentions a plan to use the Zello phone app, which works like a walkie talkie, if the internet was disrupted. The same app was used by some US Capitol rioters on January 6, 2021.

Several others shared detailed maps of the parliamentary area, labeling clearly the Congress and Senate buildings as the assembly point.

Brazil’s intelligence agency said it issued daily alerts ahead of January 8 to the government and the federal district government, warning the protests would be large and violent, CNN Brasil reports.

Their intelligence was based on a warning raised by the country’s transport agency that an unusual volume of buses had been chartered to Brasilia. Both the Minister of Justice Flávio Dino and then-Federal District Governor Ibaneis Rocha, a Bolsonaro ally, were notified, said the intelligence agency.

Despite the warnings, on January 7, Rocha told a Federal District news portal, Metropoles, that the protest would go ahead on the Esplanade – a grassy stretch surrounded by governmental buildings that leads directly to Brazil’s seats of power.

In a press conference a day after the riot, Justice Minister Dino said special security plans had been agreed upon with the Federal District – which handles the defense of the governmental complex and was led by Rocha – but did not materialize on January 8. There was a “change in administrative orientation yesterday in which the planning, which did not allow people to enter the Esplanade, was changed at the last minute,” he said.

Rocha was removed from his post for three months on Sunday. He said he respected the decision in an official statement and had also apologized to officials, including Lula, for what happened that day, saying his team “did not believe at all that the demonstrations would take on the proportions that they did.” CNN has reached out to Rocha for comment.

When protesters, as planned, turned out in droves on January 8, they were met with little resistance.

Beginning from their encampment outside the army headquarters, they walked over 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) down Brasilia’s main avenue, the Monumental Axis, to Congress.

Prior to the breach of Congress, a long line of protesters march to the government complex. In one video, a military police officer appears to give a thumbs up while shaking hands with the pro-Bolsonaro crowd walking down the avenue. Some are even patting officers on the back.

Military police attempted to stop the protesters by the Esplanade of Ministries along Eixo Monumental at around 2:25 p.m. local time, live video posted on YouTube by a protester and reviewed by CNN shows. But they were quickly over-run by protesters, who broke through the barricades. Police attempted to pepper spray a few of them as they tried to maintain the barricade but were overwhelmed.

The time the crowds arrived outside Congress at around 2:45 p.m. local time. Videos showed some federal and military police units further attempting to block their way, but they were severely outnumbered.

Chaos ensued.

Another attempt by Brasilia’s military police to use pepper spray on protesters failed. The officers, standing behind a line of metal barricades, were quickly overwhelmed as the crowd surged through, tossing the barricades to the ground.

Police confront protestors with pepper spray as they approach Congress but are quickly overwhelmed. Credit: Twitter

Free to roam in Praça dos Três Poderes (Three Powers Square), thousands of Bolsonaro supporters climbed the ramp leading to the Congress, which houses the Senate and Chamber of Deputies. They entered the buildings just before 3 p.m.

Videos from inside show overturned chairs and documents strewn on the floor as the crowds march through chanting pro-Bolsonaro slogans.

With the barricades gone, several military police officers simply watched the scene. One even filmed the protesters climbing onto the roof of Congress.

Meanwhile, outside the Congress building two federal police vans sat with smoke billowing from their windows, video shows. One has swerved off the road half-submerged in a lake.

The swarm of protesters also moved to the Supreme Court and the Presidential Palace. Officers seemed once again unable to control the situation. Some on horseback were attacked near the Supreme Court, pulled to the ground and pummeled by rioters.

In the end, the crowd managed to break inside these buildings as well and wreak havoc.

Videos showed little coordination between police divisions and left some officers overwhelmed by the crowds. Credit: TikTok and Telegram

Lula has suggested that someone deliberately left the doors to the palace unlocked. It was “opened for these people to enter because there is no broken door. It means someone facilitated their entry here,” he told reporters Thursday.

While he waits for the dust to settle, “I want to see all the tapes recorded inside the Supreme Court, inside the palace. There were a lot of conniving agents. There were a lot of people from the MP (Military Police) conniving,” he added.

The January 8 videos found online seem to convey the chaos of the moment.

In one video, responders seem to struggle to coordinate and communicate as security forces seem overwhelmed as they try to gain control.

A military police officer shouts at soldiers from the presidential guard battalion to fight the invaders as they stand by the presidential Planalto Palace.

“Command your troops, damn it!” he yells at the battalion commander.

But the soldiers appear hesitant, and their leader remains silent as they struggle to make decisions while confronted by the horde.

In pictures: Bolsonaro supporters storm Brazilian Congress

As it approaches 7 p.m. local time, the police and army finally have things under control. A YouTube livestream shows crowds filing off the roof of Congress and leaving the governmental compound.

Two hours later, Bolsonaro condemns the day’s events, saying “peaceful demonstrations, respecting the law, are part of democracy. However, depredations and invasions… escape the rule.”

Brazil’s response to the riots has been swift. The pro-Bolsonaro encampments outside army barracks were cleared, and a new round of protests on January 11 never materialized.

The Supreme Court agreed to prosecutor’s requests on Friday to investigate Bolsonaro for the alleged involvement in the attacks. His lawyer has rebutted the accusations, saying Bolsonaro always “rejected all illegal and criminal acts … and has always been a defender of the constitution and democracy.”

High level officials have aimed their sights on Bolsonaro allies still working in government, including Anderson Torres, who was effectively in charge of security for the Three Powers Square, where the governmental buildings were located.

Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the arrest of Torres, who was previously Bolsonaro’s justice minister and assumed the role of security secretary of the Federal District in January, and the district’s former military police commander Fabio Vieira.

The order accuses the pair of attempting a coup d’état, terrorist acts, damage to public property, criminal association, and violent abolition of the rule of law. It also argues “the absence of the necessary policing” during the riots happened due to the “omission and connivance of several authorities in the area of security and intelligence.”

Torres, who was fired on Sunday with Vieira, had traveled to Florida on January 7, a day before the riots. It is unclear if he met with Bolsonaro, who was also in Florida, having left Brazil in December, days before the inauguration of Lula.

The former security secretary has strenuously denied any involvement in the riots. “I deeply regret these absurd hypotheses of any kind of collusion on my part,” he tweeted on Sunday, and wrote days later that he would return to Brazil and fight the charges.

He was arrested on his return to Brazil on Saturday, CNN Brasil reports.

On Thursday, the Federal Police announced that during a search of Torres’ home, it found a draft decree proposing to overturn October’s presidential election. Torres has denied being the author.

CNN has reached out to his lawyer for comment.

Investigators are looking for funders and leaders of the riots, an unenviable task due to the protesters lack of formalized leadership, Michele Prado, an expert on the Brazilian far right, told CNN.

“Despite this fluidity of (protest) leaders and horizontality,” there are thousands of people online who continue to share extremist positions, she added.

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January 14, 2023
Brazil rioters plotted openly online, pitched huge ‘party’

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MIAMI (AP) — The map was called “Beach Trip” and was blasted out to more than 18,000 members of a public Telegram channel called, in Portuguese, “Hunting and Fishing.”

But instead of outdoor recreation tips, the 43 pins spread across the map of Brazil pointed to cities where bus transportation to the capital could be found for what promoters promised would a huge “party” on Jan. 8.

“Children and the elderly aren’t invited,” according to the post circulated on the Telegram channel, which has since been removed. “Only adults willing to participate in all the games, including target shooting of police and robbers, musical chairs, indigenous dancing, tag, and others.”

The post was one of several thinly coded messages circulating on social media ahead of Sunday’s violent attack on the capital by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro looking to restore the far-right leader to power.

It’s also now a potentially vital lead in a fledgling criminal investigation about how the rampage was organized and how officials missed clues to a conspiracy that, like the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol two years ago, appears to have been organized and carried out in plain view.

And like the attack in the U.S., the Brazilian riots demonstrate how social media makes it easier than ever for anti-democratic groups to recruit followers and transform online rhetoric into offline action.

On YouTube, rioters livestreaming the mayhem racked up hundreds of thousands of views before a Brazilian judge ordered social media platforms to remove such content. Misleading claims about the election and the uprising also could be found on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms.

But even before Sunday’s riot, social media and private messaging networks in Brazil were being flooded with calls for one final push to overturn the October election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — something authorities appear to have inexplicably missed or ignored.

Most of the online chatter referred to the planned gathering at Brasilia’s Three Powers Plaza as “Selma’s party” — a play on the Portuguese word for “selva,” a battle cry used by Brazil’s military.

Participants were told to bring their own mask to protect against “pepper pie in the face” — or pepper spray fired by security forces. They also were told to dress in the green and yellow of Brazil’s flag — and not the red preferred by Lula’s Workers’ Party.

“Get ready guests, the party will be a blast,” the widely-circulated post said.

“It was all in the open,” said David Nemer, a Brazil native and University of Virginia professor who studies social media. “They listed the people responsible for buses, with their full names and contact information. They weren’t trying to hide anything.”

Still, it’s unclear to what extent social media was responsible for the worst attack on Brazil’s democracy in decades. Only a handful of far-right activists showed up at gas terminals and refineries that were also pinpointed on the “Beach Trip” map as locations for demonstrations planned for Sunday.

Bruno Fonseca, a journalist for Agencia Publica, a digital investigative journalism outlet, has tracked the online activities of pro-Bolsonaro groups for years. He said the activists live in a state of constant confrontation but sometimes, their frequent calls to mobilize fall flat.

“It’s difficult to know when something will jump out from social media and not,” said Fonseca, who in a report this week traced the spread of the “Selma’s Party” post to users who appear to be bots.

Still, he said, authorities could have paired the online activity with other intelligence-gathering tools to investigate, for example, a surge in bus traffic to the capital before the attacks. He said their inaction may reflect negligence or the deep support for Bolsonaro among security forces.

One gnawing question is why, on the day of the chaos, Anderson Torres, a Bolsonaro ally who had just been named the top security official in Brasilia, was reportedly in Florida — where his former boss was on a retreat. Torres was swiftly fired and Brazil’s Supreme Court has ordered his arrest pending an investigation. Torres denied any wrongdoing and said he would return to Brazil and present his defense.

Sunday’s violence came after Brazilian voters were bombarded by a flood of false and misleading claims before last fall’s vote. Much of the content focused on unfounded concerns about electronic voting, and some featured threats of violent retaliation if Bolsonaro was defeated.

One of the most popular rallying cries used by Bolsonaro’s supporters was #BrazilianSpring, a term coined by former Trump aide Steve Bannon in the hours after Bolsonaro’s defeat to Lula.

“We all know that this Brazilian election was going to be contentious,” said Flora Rebello Arduini, a London-based campaign director with SumOfUs, a nonprofit that tracked extremist content before and after Brazil’s election. “Social media platforms played a vital role in amplifying far-right extremist voices and even calls for violent uprising. If we can identify this kind of content, then so can they (the companies). Incompetence is not an excuse.”

Brazil’s capital city steeled itself Wednesday for the possibility of new attacks fueled by social media posts, including one circulating on Telegram calling for a “mega protest to retake power.” But those protests fizzled.

In response to the criticism, spokespeople for Telegram, YouTube and Facebook said their companies were working to remove content urging more violence.

“Telegram is a platform for free speech and peaceful protest,” Telegram spokesman Remi Vaughn wrote in a statement to the AP. “Calls to violence are explicitly forbidden and dozens of public communities where such calls were being made have been blocked in Brazil in the past week — both proactively as per our Terms of Service as well as in response to court orders.”

A YouTube spokeswoman said the platform has removed more than 2,500 channels and more than 10,000 videos related to the election in Brazil.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has prioritized efforts to combat harmful content about Brazil’s election, a company spokesman told The Associated Press.

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Klepper reported from Washington, D.C.

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January 13, 2023
Brazil police find draft decree intended to overturn election result in former Bolsonaro minister’s home | CNN

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CNN
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Brazilian police searching the house of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s justice minister found a draft decree proposing the introduction of a state of defense to overturn the result of the country’s presidential election, the ministry’s spokeswoman told CNN.

Justice Ministry spokeswoman Lorena Ribeiro said Federal Police found the document while carrying out a search and arrest warrant at the house of Anderson Torres on Tuesday.

She said it proposed implementing a “state of defense” in the Superior Electoral Court while Bolsonaro was still leader in order to overturn the victory of his rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the October election. The draft had not been signed by Bolsonaro, Ribeiro said.

A state of defense is a legal measure that allows the sitting President to intervene in other areas of government to secure public order. While Bolsonaro lost the October election, he remained president until the end of December.

CNN has not viewed the document and Torres – who served as justice minister until the Bolsonaro administration left office – has issued a statement on social media denying he was the author of the decree.

“As Minister of Justice, we are faced with hearings, suggestions, and proposals of the most diverse types,” he wrote. “In my house there was a pile of documents to be discarded, where most likely the material described in the article was found,” he added. “Everything would be taken to be shredded at the Ministry of Justice in due course.”

Torres suggested that the decree draft had been deliberately leaked to media to discredit him.

“The cited document was picked up when I wasn’t there and leaked out of context, helping to fuel fallacious narratives against me. We were the first ministry to deliver management reports for the transition (of power),” he said. “I respect Brazilian democracy. I have a clear conscience regarding my role as minister.”

After leaving government, Torres took office as the head of Security for the Federal District of Brasilia, but was fired on Sunday after protesters breached police barriers and broke into government buildings. He had traveled to Orlando, Florida, allegedly on holiday, just days before the riots and was there as events unfolded.

Torres vowed to cut his holiday short and face justice after search and arrest warrants were issued by the Brazilian Supreme Court, denying any wrongdoing.

Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court issued Torres a preventive detention order under an arrest warrant issued on Wednesday.

The draft documents were first reported by Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo on Thursday.

Brazil’s new Justice Minister Flavio Dino told CNN Brasil on Thursday the existence of the draft decree was “appalling” and said what it called for was “unconstitutional.”

“I didn’t have access to the document and according to the press reports, it was a decree for a coup d’état that emphasizes what we saw on January 8 (the day of the riots), which wasn’t an isolated case. It was an element of a chain, a link in a coup chain in Brazil that had preparatory and astonishing acts, such as a decree of military intervention in the Electoral Court, which is unconstitutional,” Dino said.

He also criticized Torres for keeping the document at his home. “A public agent, upon becoming aware of a crime, should not keep such a document at home. It is something that really shows the will of closing the Supreme Court, the Congress, of preventing the freedom of the Brazilian people to choose their rulers. And all attempts failed, including the one on January 8.”

“What can I say to the Brazilian nation is if someone gives me a document of that nature, they would be arrested, because it is criminal. I wouldn’t keep it, I wouldn’t grind it,” Dino said.

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January 12, 2023
Who’s not coming to Davos

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DAVOS, Switzerland — The World Economic Forum’s annual conclave in the Swiss Alps is the greatest intersection of wealth and political power on the global calendar, but this year the balance is shifting.

Each January, forum organizers became used to announcing another record-setting list of national leaders, global officials and royalty making their way to the exclusive gathering.

WEF would attract even globalization’s strongest skeptics: from U.S. President Donald Trump to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.

While there are 52 heads of state of government heading to Davos this year, top-tier leaders are missing. U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese and Russian counterparts Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are all giving it a miss.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who promised to Make the Planet Great Again, is also skipping the talkfest, along with new British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and re-elected Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Instead, it’s a European-heavy guest list: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is the only leader from a G7 country, sharing top billing with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, another German.

Even within European royal ranks, the forum this year is attracting the likes of Queen Maxima of the Netherlands — a U.N. financial inclusion envoy — rather than environmental campaigners such as King Charles and Prince William.

Some of the most prominent tech companies are dialing back their participation amid rounds of heavy layoffs.

And the biggest party hosts in town — Russian oligarchs — remain forced out by sanctions levied since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has unrivaled star wattage among the Davos crowd — but even a video appearance from him this year will be treated as below par, given how many of them he now does.

It’s the C-Suite, stupid!

With the global political elite mostly absent, WEF is this year choosing to focus on rising CEO numbers.

Among 2,700 participants in official WEF sessions, “we’re likely to surpass the old record from 2020 with 600 global CEOs — including 1,500 C-suite level overall,” said WEF’s head of digital and marketing George Schmitt, who added that 80 of the CEOs are first-timers in Davos.

Those who claim Davos is dead are yet to be proven right, but WEF’s critics now spread beyond the activist world who have long disparaged the juxtaposition of private jet opulence with hand-wringing panels about global poverty.

WEF would attract even globalization’s strongest skeptics: from U.S. President Donald Trump to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg | Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

The U.S. delegation includes cabinet members such as climate envoy John Kerry, who will camp out in Davos for most of the week, but others such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen are skipping.

It’s not that Yellen has better things to do at home: She’s embarking on an 11-day trip with stops in Senegal, Zambia and South Africa, with no time for Davos.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Beatrice Fihn, who campaigns to eliminate nuclear weapons, said she “genuinely had forgotten that Davos is still happening.”

“The format seems slightly dated now. The private jets and oligarch parties are no longer in step with modern biz [business] life,” said Scott Colvin, a Davos veteran who is now public affairs director at Aviva. “The events around COP [the U.N.’s annual climate summit] now feel a bigger deal, given their focus on a specific global policy objective,” he added.

WEF is a victim of its own success and stuck in a demographic bind.

The forum’s operating model requires it to provide a place for the world’s most powerful and influential people to talk.

In 2020 Bloomberg calculated 119 billionaires joined the party, with a combined net worth of more than $500 billion.

WEF’s efforts to bring the uber-elite together is a stark annual reminder that they don’t look like the rest of us.

The best ratio of female participants in WEF’s 52-year history of in-person gatherings was 24 percent, in 2020.

Despite years of exhortations and incentives for members to bring more female colleagues, the number often hovers in the range of 18 percent to 20 percent. A WEF spokesperson said that 42 percent of speakers this year will be women.

WEF aims for global reach — but often lands in the middle of the Atlantic instead.

This year Europe is supplying the most political leaders, while the U.S. corporate delegation will once again massively outweigh the others. The 700 Americans participating this year outnumber the Chinese delegation roughly 20 to 1.

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January 12, 2023
Brazil investigates capital rampage amid calls for accountability

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Police in Brazil are questioning about 1,000 supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro who were detained following the invasion of government buildings during the weekend, as calls for justice and accountability grow across the South American nation.

Most of the former far-right leader’s backers were detained when law enforcement dismantled a protest camp in the capital, Brasilia, which many demonstrators set off from on Sunday before breaking into Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace.

Approximately 1,000 detainees from the camp outside Brazil’s federal army headquarters were held for questioning on Tuesday at a police gymnasium where they slept on the ground, some wrapped in Brazilian flags.

The administration of Brazil’s new left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was officially sworn in on January 1, has pledged to investigate who was behind the violence and hold those responsible to account.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is running investigations of the “anti-democratic” protests, vowed in a speech on Tuesday to combat the “terrorists” at work in Brasilia.

“Democracy will prevail and Brazilian institutions will not bend,” said Moraes at the swearing-in of a new head of the federal police.

Supporters of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro demonstrate outside the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on January 8, 2023 [Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters]

Rioters wearing the green and yellow of the national flag – colours that have come to symbolise support for Bolsonaro – broke windows, toppled furniture and hurled computers and printers to the ground as they ransacked the government buildings on Sunday.

They punched holes in a massive Emiliano Di Cavalcanti painting at the presidential palace and destroyed other works of art; overturned the U-shaped table where Supreme Court justices convene; ripped a door off one justice’s office, and vandalised a statue outside the court.

The riot came just weeks after Lula, who previously served as Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010, narrowly defeated Bolsonaro in a hard-fought, presidential election runoff on October 30.

Bolsonaro, a former army captain who has expressed admiration for the military regime that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, for months had falsely claimed the country’s electronic voting system was vulnerable to fraud.

Observers and rights groups cautioned that Bolsonaro’s unfounded allegations aimed to set the stage for him to dispute the election results, similar to the effort carried out in the United States by former President Donald Trump, whom Bolsonaro has emulated.

Sunday’s riot in Brasilia also drew parallels to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol, which saw a mob of Trump supporters storm the legislature in an effort to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory.

Like Trump, Bolsonaro has rejected accusations that he encouraged the unrest in Brazil’s capital. In a series of tweets on Sunday, he said peaceful protest is part of democracy, but vandalism and invasion of public buildings are “exceptions to the rule”.

Bolsonaro supporters react as buses leave a protest camp outside the army headquarters in Brasilia on January 10, 2023 [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]

Bolsonaro’s son, Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, also said on Tuesday that people should not try to link his father to what happened.

“Do not try to create a narrative of lies as if Bolsonaro had any connection with these irresponsible acts,” Flavio said during a Senate session. “Since the election results he’s been silent, licking his wounds, virtually incommunicado.”

Bolsonaro, who never formally conceded defeat to Lula, left Brazil two days before his left-wing rival’s January 1 inauguration. He is currently in the US state of Florida, where on Monday he was admitted to hospital with abdominal pain linked to a 2018 stabbing for which he has repeatedly sought medical attention.

‘No amnesty’

Brazilian police were noticeably slow to react to the riot in Brasilia — even after the arrival of more than 100 buses — leading many to question whether authorities had either simply ignored numerous warnings, underestimated the protesters’ strength or been somehow complicit.

Prosecutors in the capital said local security forces were negligent at the very least.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s Senate on Tuesday approved a decree authorising Lula’s government to take control of security in the federal district, after it was signed by the president and passed in the lower house of Congress.

The move came after thousands of Brazilians took to the streets of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, among other cities, to demand that those involved in the riot be brought to justice.

“These people need to be punished, the people who ordered it need to be punished, those who gave money for it need to be punished,” Bety Amin, a 61-year-old therapist, told The Associated Press on Monday during a rally on Sao Paulo’s main boulevard.

“They don’t represent Brazil. We represent Brazil,” Amin said.

Pro-democracy demonstrators march in Porto Alegre, Brazil on January 9, 2023 [Diego Vara/Reuters]

Declining to mete out punishment “can avoid tensions at the moment, but perpetuates instability”, Luis Felipe Miguel, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia, wrote in a column entitled “No Amnesty” published on Monday evening.

“That is the lesson we should have learned from the end of the military dictatorship, when Brazil opted not to punish the regime’s killers and torturers,” he wrote.

Reporting from Brasilia on Tuesday, Al Jazeera’s Monica Yanakiew said Lula so far has been able to present a united front, releasing a joint statement this week with the heads of the Supreme Court and both chambers of Congress in defence of Brazilian democracy.

Governors from across Brazil also pledged not to support anything like what occurred in Brasilia, she reported, in another example of how the deeply divided nation has come together “to defend the government, to defend its institutions”.

“It did strengthen Lula politically, also morally,” said Yanakiew, adding that though it remains to be seen how the president will use this momentum, “for the moment, he has the support of the governors, of the Supreme Court, of Congress.”

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January 10, 2023
‘No Amnesty!’: Brazilian Protests Demand Jail For Rioters

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — “No amnesty! No amnesty! No amnesty!”

The chant reverberated off the walls of the jam-packed hall at the University of Sao Paulo’s law college on Monday afternoon. Hours later, it was the rallying cry for thousands of Brazilians who streamed into the streets of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, penned on protest posters and banners.

The words are a demand for retribution against supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed Brazil’s capital Sunday, and those who enabled the rampage.

“These people need to be punished, the people who ordered it need to be punished, those who gave money for it need to be punished,” Bety Amin, a 61-year-old therapist, said on Sao Paulo’s main boulevard. The word “DEMOCRACY” stretched across the back of her shirt. “They don’t represent Brazil. We represent Brazil.”

Protesters’ push for accountability evokes memories of an amnesty law that for decades has protected military members accused of abuse and murder during the country’s 1964-85 dictatorship. A 2014 truth commission report sparked debate over how Brazil has grappled with the regime’s legacy.

Declining to mete out punishment “can avoid tensions at the moment, but perpetuates instability,” Luis Felipe Miguel, a professor of political science at the University of Brasilia, wrote in a column entitled “No Amnesty” published Monday evening. “That is the lesson we should have learned from the end of the military dictatorship, when Brazil opted not to punish the regime’s killers and torturers.”

Demonstrators march holding a banner that reads in Portuguese “We are Democracy” during a protest calling for protection of the nation’s democracy in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Jan. 9, 2023, a day after supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings in the capital.

Brazilian police on Monday had already rounded up roughly 1,500 rioters, with some caught in the act of trashing Brazil’s Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace, while the majority were detained the following morning at an encampment in Brasilia. Many were held in a gymnasium throughout the day, and video shared on pro-Bolsonaro social media channels showed some complaining about poor treatment in the crowded space.

The Federal Police’s press office told The Associated Press the force plans to indict at least 1,000 people, and has begun transferring them to the nearby Papuda prison.

The administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says that is only the start.

Justice minister Flávio Dino vowed to prosecute those who acted behind the scenes to summon supporters on social media and finance their transport for crimes including organized crime, staging a coup, and violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He also said authorities would investigate allegations that local security personnel allowed the destruction to proceed unabated.

“We cannot and will not compromise in fulfilling our legal duties,” Dino said. “This fulfillment is essential so such events do not repeat themselves.”

Lula signed a decree ordering the federal government to assume control of security in the capital Sunday. It was approved by Congress’ Lower House on Monday night, and now proceeds to the Senate.

The riot in Brasilia was a reminder of the threat to democracy posed by far-right elements that refuse to accept Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat. Since his Oct. 30 loss, they have camped outside military barracks, pleading for intervention to allow Bolsonaro to remain in power and oust Lula. When no coup materialized, they rose up themselves.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during a meeting with governors and leaders of the Supreme Court and the National Congress, in defense of democracy and against non-democratic acts, a day after Congress was stormed by supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in Brasilia, Brazil, on Jan. 9, 2023. The protesters also stormed the presidencial office and the Supreme Court.

Decked out in the green and yellow of the national flag, they broke windows, toppled furniture and hurled computers and printers to the ground. They punched holes in a massive Emiliano Di Cavalcanti painting at the presidential palace and destroyed other works of art. They overturned the U-shaped table where Supreme Court justices convene, ripped a door off one justice’s office and vandalized a statue outside the court. Hours passed before police expelled the mob.

“It’s unacceptable what happened yesterday. It’s terrorism,” Marcelo Menezes, a 59-year-old police officer from northeastern Pernambuco state, said at a protest in Sao Paulo. “I’m here in defense of democracy, I’m here in defense of the people.”

Cries of “No amnesty!” were also heard during Lula’s Jan. 1 inaugural address, in response to the president detailing the neglect of the outgoing Bolsonaro administration.

Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has waxed nostalgic for the dictatorship era, praised a notorious torturer as a hero and said the regime should have gone further in executing communists. His government also commemorated the anniversary of Brazil’s 1964 coup.

Political analysts had repeatedly warned that Bolsonaro was laying the groundwork for an insurrection in the mold of that which unfolded in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. For months, he stoked belief among hardcore supporters that the nation’s electronic voting system was prone to fraud — though he never presented any evidence and independent experts disagreed.

A worker stands on the other side of a broken window at Planalto Palace the day after the office of the president was stormed by supporters of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro in Brasilia, Brazil, on Jan. 9, 2023.

Results from the election, the closest since Brazil’s return to democracy, were quickly recognized by politicians across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of other governments. The outgoing president surprised nearly everyone by promptly fading from view, neither conceding defeat nor emphatically crying fraud. He and his party submitted a request to nullify millions of votes, which was swiftly dismissed by the electoral authority.

None of that dissuaded his die-hard backers from their conviction that Bolsonaro belonged in power.

In the immediate aftermath of the riot, Lula said that the so-called “fascist fanatics” and their financial backers must be held responsible. He also accused Bolsonaro of encouraging the uprising.

Bolsonaro denied the president’s accusation Sunday. Writing on Twitter, he said peaceful protest is part of democracy, but vandalism and invasion of public buildings cross the line.

Authorities are also investigating the role of the federal district’s police in either failing to halt protesters’ advance or standing aside to let them run amok. Prosecutors in the capital said local security forces were negligent at the very least. A supreme court justice temporarily suspended the regional governor, who oversees the force, for what he termed “willful omission”. Another justice blamed authorities across Brazil for not swiftly cracking down on “homegrown neofascism.”

Agents inspect a security room that was trashed inside Planalto Palace, the office of the president, the day after it was stormed by supporters of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro in Brasilia, Brazil, on Jan. 9, 2023. The protesters also stormed Congress and the Supreme Court.

The upheaval finally prompted municipal and state governments to disperse pro-Bolsonaro encampments outside military barracks that have lasted since the election. Their tents and tarps were taken down, and residents were sent packing.

But pro-democracy protesters on Monday sought to ensure that their message — “No amnesty!” — was heard by the authorities responsible for investigating and prosecuting, as well as far-right elements who might dare defy democracy again.

“After what happened yesterday, we need to go to the street,” said Marcos Gama, a retiree who protested Monday night in Sao Paulo. “We need to react.”

AP videojournalist Mello reported from Sao Paulo.

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January 10, 2023
Election protesters storm Brazil’s Congress

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Election protesters storm Brazil’s Congress – CBS News

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Officials in Brazil are vowing to punish thousands of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the country’s far-right former president, after they stormed and vandalized government buildings on Sunday, hoping to have him returned to power. Bolsonaro fled to the U.S. days before his term ended.

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January 9, 2023
The most chilling warning for Americans from Brazil’s version of January 6 | CNN Politics

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CNN
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On the face of it, the mob storming of government buildings in Brazil in support of a defeated ex-president making false claims of electoral fraud looks like a copycat assault on democracy inspired by the US Capitol insurrection.

But for Americans, the reality of the comparison between the insurrection inspired by the 45th US president on January, 6, 2021, and the latest revolt by supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, dubbed “Trump of the Tropics,” is even more troubling. Brazil is in turmoil after hundreds of Bolsonaro supporters stormed congressional buildings, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace in the capital Brasilia. The assault came a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who returned to power after a 12-year hiatus following a victory over Bolsonaro in a run-off election on October 30.

While many elements of the situation in Brazil overlap with the populist conservatism epitomized by former President Donald Trump’s inner circle in the US, it also poses the question of whether the US, under assault from its own anti-democratic movement, is beginning to resemble the political turmoil that has long raged in less stable regions of the world.

For now, there are growing questions over whether key extremists in Trump’s inner circle, like Steve Bannon, helped fan the violence in Brasilia and doubts over the Brazilian election, as part of a bid to destabilize democracies worldwide.

Bolsonaro did not explicitly provoke the gathering of protesters as Trump did, and was not in the country at the time of the riot. He did, however, adopt the Trump playbook, sowing doubt about the vote’s legitimacy, refusing to concede his election loss and profiting from disinformation spread on social media. But his behavior is not necessarily an outlier in a nation and a continent where democracy is perpetually fragile and at risk.

Brazil was a military-run dictatorship until 1985 after the crushing of an earlier attempt at democracy, and civilian self-government since then has often been rocked by corruption, fears of military takeovers and prosecutions of former presidents. The erosion of democracy and the use of violence as a political tool were a feature of much of the Western Hemisphere long before Trump latched onto them.

So, while it may look like Brazilian extremists are copying their brethren in the US, the world’s most important democracy could actually be importing the characteristics of malfunctioning and chaotic political societies abroad.

Violence had long been feared following October’s election. Bolsonaro supporters, spurred by his false claims of electoral fraud, that mirrored Trump’s own behavior after the 2020 election, clearly incited his supporters. Just as in the United States, there are elements among Brazilian legislators and in political power in the states who support Bolsonaro and his efforts to undermine democracy.

The new House majority in Washington is packed with Republican members who voted not to certify President Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020 based on false claims of ballot fraud. And the new Speaker Kevin McCarthy only finally won the job on a 15th ballot after an intervention from Trump – poignantly on the night that marked the second anniversary of Congress returning to work after the Capitol riot.

In other echoes of January 6, Bolsonaro – like his populist, nationalist political cousin Trump – is currently in Florida. Like the 45th US president, he also prepared to undermine the election in advance and refused to concede defeat after making complaints about voting machines that were rejected by judges. The closest he got was when he said he would comply with the Constitution.

So far, Brazil’s democracy, as America’s did two years ago, has held firm, and protesters have been flushed out of government buildings. But the Biden administration has been concerned from the start about the implications of Bolsonaro’s election denialism in a nation that is a political and economic fulcrum in Latin America. It warned publicly and in private, weeks before the election that then-President Bolsonaro should not sabotage democracy, clearly understanding the parallels with Trump and more broadly the dangers facing Brazilian democracy since the end of military rule in the 1980s.

Biden, who has put the threats to global democracy at the center of his foreign policy, condemned the assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in a tweet. “Brazil’s democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined,” Biden wrote. “I look forward to continuing to work with @LulaOficial,” he wrote, referring to the current president.

But the violence in Brazil came as a jolt after the last year in which democracy appeared to be making a comeback around the world, including in the United States where voters in some swing states rejected election denialism pushed by many of Trump’s political proteges in the midterm elections.

The most powerful example that Washington can send to Brazil, and other nations where political systems are under duress, is that democracy bent but didn’t break in 2021, and that those who threatened it are starting to be held to account.

But two dates, January 6 in the US and January 8 in Brazil, now stand as flashing warning signs that the health and survival of free elections anywhere cannot be taken for granted.

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January 9, 2023
Supporters of Brazil’s Bolsonaro storm Congress, other buildings

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Supporters of Brazil’s Bolsonaro storm Congress, other buildings – CBS News

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Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his election defeat stormed the country’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace on Sunday.

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January 8, 2023
Pro-Bolsonaro supporters breach security barriers and break into Brazilian Congress | CNN

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Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro breached security barriers set up by the Armed Forces on Sunday and gained access to the country’s congressional building, the Supreme Court and the Planalto Presidential Palace, according to images shown in Brazilian media.

Footage showed massive crowds walking up a ramp that leads to the congressional building, where they had reached the Green Room, located outside the lower House of Congress’ chamber, Interim Senate President Veneziano Vital do Rogo told CNN Brasil.

Images from other outlets showed them entering the Supreme Court and the presidential palace.

The breaches come about a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose return to power after a 12-year hiatus comes after he defeated Bolsonaro in a run-off election on October 30.

Supporters of Bolsonaro – who has left Brazil and is currently in the United States – have been camped out in the capital of Brasília since then. Justice Minister Flavio Dino had authorized the Armed Forces to set up the barriers and guard the congressional building Saturday due to the continued presence of pro-Bolsonaro supporters.

President Lula is currently not in the palace and neither house of Congress is currently in session.

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January 8, 2023
Supporters of Brazil’s Bolsonaro storm Congress in capital

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Challenger defeats Brazil’s leader in runoff

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wins Brazil’s presidential race over incumbent Jair Bolsonaro

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Rio de Janeiro — Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed Congress in the capital of Brasília on Sunday, climbing on top of its roof and breaking the glass in its windows.

Others 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.

Supporters of Brazilian former President Jair Bolsonaro hold a demonstration at the Esplanada dos Ministérios in Brasilia on January 8, 2023.

EVARISTO SA/AFP via Getty Images

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.

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.

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January 8, 2023
Jair Bolsonaro Fast Facts | CNN

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Here is a look at the life of Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil.

Birth date: March 21, 1955

Birth place: Campinas, Brazil

Birth name: Jair Messias Bolsonaro

Father: Percy Geraldo Bolsonaro, dentist

Mother: Olinda Bonturi Bolsonaro

Marriage: Michelle Bolsonaro; Ana Cristina Valle (divorced); Rogéria Bolsonaro (divorced)

Children: with Michelle Bolsonaro: Laura; with Ana Cristina Valle: Jair Renan; with Rogéria Bolsonaro: Flavio, Carlos and Eduardo

Education: Agulhas Negras Military Academy, 1977

Military: Army, Captain

Religion: Roman Catholic

A conservative provocateur, Bolsonaro has a predilection for making inflammatory statements. His rhetorical targets include women and the LGBTQ community. In 2003, he told a congresswoman that she was not worthy of being raped. During a 2011 interview with Playboy magazine, Bolsonaro said he would be incapable of loving a gay son. He has expressed a sense of nostalgia for Brazil’s past as a military dictatorship.

Bolsonaro served seven terms as a congressman in the Chamber of Deputies. While in congress, his priorities included protecting the rights of citizens to own firearms, promoting Christian values and getting tough on crime. In 2017, he said, “A policeman who doesn’t kill isn’t a policeman.”

Bolsonaro changed his party affiliation numerous times, ultimately campaigning for president as a member of the Social Liberal Party.

When Bolsonaro took office, Brazil was suffering through a prolonged period of economic malaise and rising insecurity. His ascent was preceded by a corruption scandal that rocked political and financial institutions. During his inaugural address, Bolsonaro vowed to transform Brazil into a “strong and booming country.”

1986 – Bolsonaro writes an opinion column for the magazine Veja that criticizes the Brazilian Army’s pay system. He is subsequently disciplined for insubordination.

1989-1991 – Councilman for Rio de Janeiro.

1991-2018 – Congressman representing Rio de Janeiro in the Chamber of Deputies.

July 22, 2018 – Bolsonaro announces he is running for president.

August 15, 2018 – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former president of Brazil, announces he has submitted the necessary paperwork to register as the Workers’ Party candidate to run against Bolsonaro. Lula da Silva campaigns from prison, where he is serving a 12-year sentence for corruption.

September 1, 2018 – Brazil’s top electoral court bars Lula da Silva from running for reelection while incarcerated. Ultimately, a former mayor of São Paulo named Fernando Haddad steps in as the Workers’ Party candidate.

September 6, 2018 – Bolsonaro is stabbed in the stomach during a campaign rally. He spends more than three weeks in the hospital recovering.

October 7, 2018 – Voters cast ballots in the first round of elections. Although Bolsonaro wins more votes than Haddad, he doesn’t surpass the 50% threshold. A runoff is set for later in the month.

October 28, 2018 – Bolsonaro wins the runoff. The final tally shows Bolsonaro with 55.13% and Haddad with 44.87%.

January 1, 2019 – Bolsonaro is sworn into office. On the same day, he issues a series of executive orders. One order could potentially strip away many LGBTQ civil rights protections by eliminating LGBTQ issues from the list of matters handled by the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights. Another order gives the Agriculture Ministry the authority to designate indigenous lands, paving the way for agricultural development in areas that were previously off limits.

January 15, 2019 – Signs an executive order temporarily eliminating a regulation that limits firearms purchases only to individuals who provide a justification for owning a gun. The regulation gave police discretion to approve or deny gun sales.

January 28, 2019 – Officials say Bolsonaro has undergone successful surgery to remove a colostomy bag he was fitted with after being stabbed four months ago.

February 28, 2019 – Bolsonaro meets with Venezuelan opposition leader and self-proclaimed interim president, Juan Guaidó in Brasilia. During a joint news conference, Bolsonaro pledges Brazil’s support to help ensure “democracy is re-established in Venezuela.”

May 3, 2019 – A spokesman for Bolsonaro announces that the president has canceled a trip to New York, where he was set to be honored with a Person of the Year award from the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce. The trip was scrapped amid a political backlash. The event’s original host venue, the American Museum of Natural History canceled and some corporate sponsors dropped out. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio had called Bolsonaro “a dangerous man.”

May 7, 2019 – Bolsonaro signs an executive order relaxing gun control restrictions. The executive order makes it easier for guns to be imported and boosts the amount of ammunition an individual can purchase annually.

July 11, 2019 – During a news conference, Bolsonaro says that he wants his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, to serve as ambassador to the United States. He says that Eduardo is friendly with the children of US President Donald Trump.

August 23, 2019 – Bolsonaro announces a plan to send army troops to fight wildfires sweeping through the Amazon rainforest.

August 26, 2019 – At the G7 summit in France, French President Emmanuel Macron announces a $20 million emergency fund to help Brazil with the fires. Bolsonaro responds that he cannot accept Macron’s “intentions behind the idea of an ‘alliance’ of the G7 countries to ‘save’ the Amazon, as if we were a colony or no man’s land.” The dispute devolves after a Facebook user posts a meme ridiculing the appearance of Macron’s wife on Bolsonaro’s page and the president jokes, “Don’t humiliate the guy…haha.”

September 8, 2019 – Bolsonaro undergoes a hernia operation to treat complications from prior surgeries conducted as he recovered from a stab wound.

December 24, 2019 – Tells the Band TV network that he was hospitalized overnight after falling in the presidential palace December 23. He says he had brief memory loss, but that he has recovered.

April 19, 2020 – Bolsonaro joins a rally in the country’s capital, where protesters called for an end to coronavirus quarantine measures and some urged military intervention to shut down Congress and the Supreme Court. He later defends his participation, saying that he was not calling for military action against the country’s other branches of government.

June 23, 2020 – Bolsonaro is ordered by a federal judge in Brasilia to wear a face mask in public or face a fine. The decision extends to all government employees in the Federal District, where the capital Brasilia is located.

July 7, 2020 – Bolsonaro announces he has tested positive for Covid-19, following months of downplaying the virus.

March 16, 2021 – A Brazilian court orders Bolsonaro to pay damages to a journalist after he made remarks that questioned her credibility.

April 27, 2021 – Brazil’s Senate launches an inquiry Tuesday into the federal government’s response to Covid-19.

July 14, 2021 – Bolsonaro is admitted to the hospital to investigate the cause of persistent hiccups that are leading to abdominal pains, according to Brazil’s Special Secretariat for Social Communication.

December 3, 2021 – Brazil’s Supreme Court orders an investigation into Bolsonaro’s false claim that people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 may have a higher risk of contracting AIDS. The inquiry is launched in response to a request by the country’s parliamentary commission which has been investigating Bolsonaro’s government’s response to the pandemic.

January 3, 2022 – Bolsonaro is admitted to a hospital with a blockage in his intestine, the latest medical issue linked to his 2018 stabbing.

June 29, 2022 – A Brazilian court rules that Bolsonaro must pay “moral damages” of 35,000 reais (approximately $6,700) to a Brazilian journalist after making remarks with sexual innuendo about her in 2020.

October 2, 2022 – In the presidential election, Bolsonaro finishes with 43.2% versus Lula da Silva’s 48.4%. Either candidate needed to surpass 50% to be elected in the first round of voting, so the two will face each other in a runoff on October 30.

October 30, 2022 – Bolsonaro loses his bid for a second term, after receiving 49.1% of the vote against Lula da Silva, who wins with 50.9%.

November 22, 2022 – Bolsonaro files a petition with Brazil election authorities formally contesting the results of the presidential vote, alleging that some voting machines had malfunctioned and any votes cast through them should be annulled. The petition is rejected the following day.

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January 5, 2023
Brazil’s Lula sworn in, vows accountability and rebuilding

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BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in as president on Sunday, and in his first address expressed optimism about plans to rebuild while pledging that members of outgoing Jair Bolsonaro’s administration will be held to account.

Lula is assuming office for the third time after thwarting far-right incumbent Bolsonaro’s reelection bid. His return to power marks the culmination of a political comeback that is thrilling supporters and enraging opponents in a fiercely polarized nation.

“Our message to Brazil is one of hope and reconstruction,” Lula said in a speech in Congress’ Lower House after signing the document that formally instates him as president. “The great edifice of rights, sovereignty and development that this nation built has been systematically demolished in recent years. To re-erect this edifice, we are going to direct all our efforts.”

Sunday afternoon in Brasilia’s main esplanade, the party was on. Tens of thousands of supporters decked out in the red of Lula’s Workers’ Party cheered after his swearing in.

They celebrated when the president said he would send a report about the prior administration to all lawmakers and judicial authorities, revoke Bolsonaro’s “criminal decrees” that loosened gun control, and hold the prior administration responsible for its denialism in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We do not carry any spirit of revenge against those who sought to subjugate the nation to their personal and ideological designs, but we are going to ensure the rule of law,” Lula said, without mentioning Bolsonaro by name. “Those who erred will answer for their errors, with broad rights to their defense within the due legal process.”

Lula’s presidency is unlikely to be like his previous two mandates, coming after the tightest presidential race in more than three decades in Brazil and resistance to his taking office by some of his opponents, political analysts say.

The leftist defeated Bolsonaro in the Oct. 30 vote by less than 2 percentage points. For months, Bolsonaro had sown doubts about the reliability of Brazil’s electronic vote and his loyal supporters were loath to accept the loss.

Many have gathered outside military barracks since, questioning results and pleading with the armed forces to prevent Lula from taking office.

His most die-hard backers resorted to what some authorities and incoming members of Lula’s administration labeled acts of “terrorism” – which had prompted security concerns about inauguration day events.

Lula will have to navigate more challenging economic conditions than he enjoyed in his first two terms, when the global commodities boom proved a windfall for Brazil.

At the time, his administration’s flagship welfare program helped lift tens of millions of impoverished people into the middle class. He left office with a personal approval rating of 83%.

In the intervening years, Brazil’s economy plunged into two deep recessions — first, during the tenure of his handpicked successor, and then during the pandemic — and ordinary Brazilians suffered greatly.

Lula has said his priorities are fighting poverty, and investing in education and health. He has also said he will bring illegal deforestation of the Amazon to a halt. He sought support from political moderates to form a broad front and defeat Bolsonaro, then tapped some of them to serve in his Cabinet.

In his first act as president Sunday, Lula signed a decree to tighten gun control and set a 30-day deadline for the comptroller-general’s office to evaluate various Bolsonaro decrees that placed official information under seal for 100 years. He also signed a decree that guaranteed a monthly stipend for poor families, and reestablished the mostly Norway-financed Amazon fund for sustainable development in the rainforest.

Claúdio Arantes, a 68-year-old pensioner, carried an old Lula campaign flag on his way to the esplanade. The lifelong Lula supporter attended his 2003 inauguration, and agreed that this time feels different.

“Back then, he could talk about Brazil being united. Now it is divided and won’t heal soon,” Arantes said. “I trust his intelligence to make this national unity administration work so we never have a Bolsonaro again.”

Given the nation’s political fault lines, it is highly unlikely Lula ever reattains the popularity he once enjoyed, or even sees his approval rating rise above 50%, said Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at Rio de Janeiro’s State University.

Furthermore, Santoro said, the credibility of Lula and his Workers’ Party were assailed by a sprawling corruption investigation. Party officials were jailed, including Lula — whose convictions were later annulled on procedural grounds. The Supreme Court then ruled that the judge presiding over the case had colluded with prosecutors to secure a conviction.

Lula and his supporters have maintained he was railroaded. Others were willing to look past possible malfeasance as a means to unseat Bolsonaro and bring the nation back together.

“I always wanted to go the inauguration, I didn’t think I would have a chance to see Lula there after he was jailed,” said Tamires Valente, 43, a marketing professional from Brasilia. “I am very emotional, Lula deserves this.”

But Bolsonaro’s backers refuse to accept someone they view as a criminal returning to the highest office. And with tensions running hot, a series of events has prompted fear that violence could erupt on inauguration day.

On Dec. 12, dozens of people tried to invade a federal police building in Brasilia, and burned cars and buses in other areas of the city. Then on Christmas Eve, police arrested a 54-year-old man who admitted to making a bomb that was found on a fuel truck headed to Brasilia’s airport.

He had been camped outside Brasilia’s army headquarters with hundreds of other Bolsonaro supporters since Nov. 12. He told police he was ready for war against communism, and planned the attack with people he had met at the protests, according to excerpts of his deposition released by local media.

Bolsonaro finally condemned the bomb plot in a Dec. 30 farewell address on social media, hours before flying to the U.S.. His absence on inauguration day marks a break with tradition.

Instead of Bolsonaro, a group representing diverse segments of society performed the role of presenting Lula with the presidential sash to Lula atop the ramp of the presidential palace. Across the sea of people standing before the palace, supporters stretched a massive Brazilian flag over their heads.

Speaking to the crowd, Lula listed shortfalls in government funds that will affect the Brazilian people. He said that, according to the transition team’s report on Bolsonaro’s government, textbooks haven’t been printed for public schools, there are insufficient free medications and COVID-19 vaccines, the threat looms of federal universities shutting down, and civil defense authorities cannot work to prevent disasters.

“Who pays the price for this blackout is, once again, the Brazilian people,” he said, and was promptly met by a chant from the crowd: “No amnesty! No amnesty! No amnesty!”

___

AP writer Diane Jeantet contributed from Rio de Janeiro.

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January 2, 2023
Lula da Silva sworn in as Brazil’s president, amid fears of violence from Bolsonaro supporters | CNN

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Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva was sworn in as Brazil’s president for the third time on Sunday, as threats of violence loomed from supporters of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.

“I promise to maintain, defend and fulfill the constitution, observe the laws, promote the general good of the Brazilian people, support the unity, integrity and independence of Brazil,” Lula said.

The 76-year-old politician, returning to the presidency after a 12 year hiatus, arrived with his wife, Rosângela da Silva, at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Brasília at 12:20 p.m. local time before heading to congress where a formal congressional session took place.

Parliamentarians applauded Lula before breaking into a chant of “ole, ole ola, Lula, Lula.”

The Senate president opened the ceremony by paying respects to Pelé and Pope Benedict with a minute of silence.

During the ceremony, Lula broke with traditional protocol to tell a short story about the pen he used to sign congressional documents.

“In 1989 was in a rally in Piaui, then we walked until the San Benedict church, and a citizen gave me this pen and asked me to use this to sign in if I win the election in ’89. I didn’t win the election in ‘89, didn’t win in ‘94, didn’t win ‘98. In 2002 I won, but when I arrived here I had forgotten the pen and signed with a senator pen. In 2006, I signed with the Senate pen, and now I found the pen, and I do in honor of the people of Piaui state,” he said.

The newly inaugurated president and the first lady then traveled in an open car parade to attend a military honors ceremony outside the presidential palace.

Looming over the ceremony was the notable absence of Bolsonaro, who left Brazil for Florida on Friday and did not specify his return date.

His trip to the United States breaks with Brazilian convention of outgoing leaders being present at their successors’ inauguration ceremony. It came as Brazil’s government issued an ordinance on Friday authorizing five civil servants to accompany “future ex-president” Bolsonaro to Miami, Florida, between January 1 and 30, 2023.

Lula won a tight run-off race on October 30, in a stunning comeback that marked the return of the left in power in Brazil following four years of Bolsonaro’s far-right administration.

Lula accomplished a remarkable return to power after a series of corruption allegations that led to his imprisonment for 580 days. The Supreme Court later ruled it a mistrial, clearing his path to run for reelection.

After previously governing Brazil for two consecutive terms between 2003 and 2010, Lula will inherit a country with crippling debt and much higher levels of poverty than when he left office.

Bolsonaro’s former vice president, Hamilton Mourao, addressed the nation in a speech on national television this Saturday on the last day of his government and criticized leaders whose silence created “an atmosphere of chaos.”

“Leaders that should reassure and unite the nation around a project for the country allowed that silence to create an atmosphere of chaos and social division,” said Mourao, who added that the armed forces had to pay the bill. Since the election results, Bolsonaro had addressed the public only three times. He did not accept election results in those addresses, fomenting his radical base into believing the result could be reversed.

Lula vowed to rebuild the country, after thanking the “vow of trust given by the Brazilian people” during a speech addressing Congress.

“Today our message to Brazil is of hope and reconstruction,” Lula said. “If we are here today, it is thanks to the political conscience of Brazilian society, and the democratic coalition that we built during the campaign.”

Lula said that democracy was the biggest winner of the Brazilian election after his campaign was able to overcome a series of obstacles.

“Despite everything, the decision in the ballots prevails, thanks to an electoral system internationally recognized for its efficacy. It was fundamental the courageous attitude of the Judiciary, mostly from the Supreme Electoral Court,” Lula continued.

Lula proceeded his speech by criticizing the government of Bolsonaro, accusing the former president of using Brazil’s resources to further increase his power.

“The diagnosis we received from the transition cabinet is appalling. They emptied the resources for health, dismantled education, culture, science, they destroyed the environmental protections, haven’t left resources to school meals, vaccines, public security, forest protection and social assistance,” Lula said.

Violence has taken grip of the country with Bolsonaro yet to explicitly concede his election loss, despite his administration saying it is cooperating with the transition of power.

Security presence at Lula’s inauguration was high, as approximately 8,000 security agents from several security forces were mobilized Sunday, according to the Federal District’s security department.

Earlier on Sunday, a man was arrested in Brasilia after he was caught trying to get into the inauguration party carrying a knife and fireworks, the State Police of the Federal District said in a statement. The suspect traveled from Rio de Janeiro.

A Brazilian Supreme Court judge on Wednesday ordered a four-day ban on carrying firearms in the capital that will run through the end of Sunday, as a precautionary measure ahead of the ceremony.

It will not apply to active members of the armed forces, policemen and private security guards, Judge Alexandre de Moraes wrote.

Lula da Silva’s team had requested the ban on firearms at the inauguration days after police arrested a man on suspicion of planting and possessing explosive devices at Brasilia International Airport.

The suspect, identified as 54-year-old gas station manager George Washington de Oliveira Sousa, is a Bolsonaro supporter and told police in a statement, seen by CNN, that he intended to “create chaos” so as to prevent Lula from taking office again in January.

Moraes’ ban came into force as thousands of Bolsonaro supporters have gathered at military barracks across the country in protest of the election result, asking the army to step in as they claim, with no evidence, that the election was stolen.

Bolsonaro condemned Sousa’s bombing attempt on Friday, saying “there is no justification” for a “terrorist act.”

“Brazil will not end on January 1, you can be sure about that,” the outgoing president said in reference to Lula’s inauguration date.

“Today we have a mass of people who know more about politics,” he added. “They understand they are at risk. Good will win. We have leaders all over Brazil. New politicians or reelected politicians, they will make a difference.”

Lula praised Brazil’s natural resources and promised a U-turn to his predecessor’s deforestation policy in the Amazon while aiming to maximize the country’s potential.

“No other country has the conditions Brazil has to become an environmental power. Having creativity, the bioeconomy and socio biodiversity enterprises as starting points, we will start the energy and ecology transition towards sustainable agriculture and mining activities, family agriculture and green industry. Our goal is zero deforestation in the Amazon, zero greenhouse gasses emissions,” Lula said during his address to Congress.

“We will not tolerate (…) the environmental degradation and deforestation that harmed the country so greatly. This is one of the reasons, albeit not the only one, for the creation of the indigenous people’s ministry,” Lula continued.

The new Brazilian president promised to address the inequality inflicted on minorities in the country by creating “the ministry of racial equality promotion to expand the affirmative action policy in universities and public service, as well as resuming policies for Black and brown people in the health, education and culture areas.”

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January 1, 2023
Lula set for inauguration to preside over polarized Brazil

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BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be sworn in Sunday in the capital, Brasilia, and assume office for the third time, marking the culmination of a political comeback sure to thrill supporters and enrage opponents in a fiercely polarized nation.

But Lula’s presidency is unlikely to be like his previous two mandates, coming after the tightest presidential race in more than three decades in Brazil and resistance to his taking office by some of his opponents, political analysts say.

The leftist defeated far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in the Oct. 30 vote by less than 2 percentage points. For months, Bolsonaro had sown doubts about the reliability of Brazil’s electronic vote and his loyal supporters were loath to accept the loss.

Many have gathered outside military barracks since, questioning results and pleading with the armed forces to prevent Lula from taking office.

His most die-hard backers resorted to what some authorities and incoming members of Lula’s administration labeled acts of “terrorism” – something the country had not seen since the early 1980s, and which have prompted growing security concerns about inauguration day events.

“In 2003, the ceremony was very beautiful. There wasn’t this bad, heavy climate,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, referring to the year Lula first took office. “Today, it’s a climate of terror.”

Tanya Albuquerque, a student, flew from Sao Paulo to Brasilia and had tears in her eyes as she heard local leftists celebrating incoming visitors at Brasilia’s airport. She decided to attend after seeing pictures of Lula’s first inauguration.

“Maybe we won’t have 300,000 people tomorrow like then; these are different and more divisive times. But I knew I wouldn’t be happy in front of a TV,” Albuquerque, 23, said on Saturday.

Lula has made it his mission to heal the divided nation. But he will have to do so while navigating more challenging economic conditions than he enjoyed in his first two terms, when the global commodities boom proved a windfall for Brazil.

At the time, his administration’s flagship welfare program helped lift tens of millions of impoverished people into the middle class. Many Brazilians traveled abroad for the first time. He left office with a personal approval rating of 83%.

In the intervening years, Brazil’s economy plunged into two deep recessions — first, during the tenure of his handpicked successor, and then during the pandemic — and ordinary Brazilians suffered greatly.

Lula has said his priorities are fighting poverty, and investing in education and health. He has also said he will bring illegal deforestation of the Amazon to a halt. He sought support from political moderates to form a broad front and defeat Bolsonaro, then tapped some of them to serve in his Cabinet.

Given the nation’s political fault lines, however, it is highly unlikely Lula ever reattains the popularity he once enjoyed, or even sees his approval rating rise above 50%, said Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at Rio de Janeiro’s State University.

Furthermore, Santoro said, the credibility of Lula and his Workers’ Party were assailed by a sprawling corruption investigation. Party officials were jailed, including Lula — until his convictions were annulled on procedural grounds. The Supreme Court then ruled that the judge presiding over the case had colluded with prosecutors to secure a conviction.

Lula and his supporters have maintained he was railroaded. Others were willing to look past possible malfeasance as a means to unseat Bolsonaro and bring the nation back together.

But Bolsonaro’s backers refuse to accept someone they view as a criminal returning to the highest office. And with tensions running hot, a series of events has prompted fear that violence could erupt on inauguration day.

On Dec. 12, dozens of people tried to invade a federal police building in Brasilia, and burned cars and buses in other areas of the city. Then on Christmas Eve, police arrested a 54-year-old man who admitted to making a bomb that was found on a fuel truck headed to Brasilia’s airport.

He had been camped outside Brasilia’s army headquarters with hundreds of other Bolsonaro supporters since Nov. 12. He told police he was ready for war against communism, and planned the attack with people he had met at the protests, according to excerpts of his deposition released by local media. The next day, police found explosive devices and several bulletproof vests in a forested area on the federal district’s outskirts.

Lula’s incoming Justice Minister, Flávio Dino, this week called for federal authorities to put an end to the “antidemocratic” protests, calling them “incubators of terrorists.”

In response to a request from Lula’s team, the current justice minister authorized deployment of the national guard until Jan. 2, and Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes banned people from carrying firearms in Brasilia during these days.

“This is the fruit of political polarization, of political extremism,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Pavão stressed that Bolsonaro, who mostly vanished from the political scene since he lost his reelection bid, was slow to disavow recent incidents.

“His silence is strategic: Bolsonaro needs to keep Bolsonarismo alive,” Pavão said.

Bolsonaro finally condemned the bomb plot in a Dec. 30 farewell address on social media, hours before flying to the U.S.. His absence on inauguration day will mark a break with tradition and it remains unclear who, instead of him, will hand over the presidential sash to Lula at the presidential palace.

Lawyer Eduardo Coutinho will be there. He bought a flight to Brasilia as a Christmas present to himself.

“I wish I were here when Bolsonaro’s plane took off, that is the only thing that makes me almost as happy as tomorrow’s event,” Coutinho, 28, said after singing Lula campaign jingles on the plane. “I’m not usually so over-the-top, but we need to let it out and I came here just to do that. Brazil needs this to move on.”

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Jeantet reported from Rio de Janeiro. AP writer Mauricio Savarese contributed from Brasilia.

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January 1, 2023
Brazil’s Lula picks Amazon defender for environment minister

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RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil´s President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced Thursday that Amazon activist Marina Silva will be the country´s next minister of environment. The announcement indicates the new administration will prioritize cracking down on illegal deforestation even if it means running afoul of powerful agribusiness interests.

Both attended the recent U.N. climate conference in Egypt, where Lula promised cheering crowds “zero deforestation” in the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest and a key to fighting climate change, by 2030. “There will be no climate security if the Amazon isn’t protected,” he said.

Silva told the news network Globo TV shortly after the announcement that the name of the ministry she will lead will be changed to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

Many agribusiness players and associated lawmakers resent Silva. That stems from her time as environment minister during most of Lula’s prior presidency, from 2003 to 2010.

Lula also named Sonia Guajajara, an Indigenous woman, as Brazil’s first minister of Indigenous peoples, and Carlos Fávaro, a soybean producer, as agriculture minister.

Silva was born in the Amazon and worked as a rubber tapper as an adolescent. As environment minister she oversaw the creation of dozens of conservation areas and a sophisticated strategy against deforestation, with major operations against environmental criminals and new satellite surveillance. She also helped design the largest international effort to preserve the rainforest, the mostly Norway-backed Amazon Fund. Deforestation dropped dramatically.

But Lula and Silva fell out as he began catering to farmers during his second term and Silva resigned in 2008.

Lula appears to have convinced her that he has changed tack, and she joined his campaign after he embraced her proposals for preservation.

“Brazil will return to the protagonist role it previously had when it comes to climate, to biodiversity,” Silva told reporters during her own appearance at the U.N. summit.

This would be a sharp turnabout from the policies of the outgoing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who pushed for development in the Amazon and whose environment minister resigned after national police began investigating whether he was aiding the export of illegally cut timber.

Bolsonaro froze the creation of protected areas, weakened environmental agencies and placed forest management under control of the agriculture ministry. He also championed agribusiness, which opposes the creation of protected areas such as Indigenous territories and pushes for the legalization of land grabbing. Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon reached a 15-year high in the year ending in July 2021, though the devastation slowed somewhat in the following 12 months.

In Egypt, Lula committed to prosecuting all crimes in the forest, from illegal logging to mining. He also said he would press rich countries to make good on promises to help developing nations adapt to climate change. And he pledged to work with other nations home to large tropical forests — the Congo and Indonesia — in what could be coordinated negotiating positions on forest management and biodiversity protection.

As environment minister, Silva would be charged with carrying out much of that agenda.

Silva is also likely to face resistance from Congress, where the farm caucus next year will account for more than one-third of the Lower House and Senate.

Two lawmakers allied with Lula who come from the nation’s agriculture sector told The Associated Press before the announcements they disagree with Silva’s nomination given the conflict of her prior tenure. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals.

Others were more hopeful. Neri Geller, a lawmaker of the agribusiness caucus who acted as a bridge to Lula during the campaign, said things had changed since Silva’s departure in 2008.

“At the time, Marina Silva was perhaps a little too extremist, but people from the agro sector also had some extremists,” he said, citing a strengthened legal framework around environmental protection as well. “I think she matured and we matured. We can make progress on important agenda items for the sector while preserving (the environment) at the same time.”

Silva and Brazil stand to benefit from a rejuvenated Amazon Fund, which took a hit in 2019 when Norway and Germany froze new cash transfers after Bolsonaro excluded state governments and civil society from decision-making. The Norwegian Embassy in Brazil praised “the clear signals” from Lula about addressing deforestation.

“We think the Amazon Fund can be opened quickly to support the government’s action plan once the Brazilian government reinstates the governing structure of the fund,” the embassy said in a statement to the AP.

The split between Lula and Marina in his last administration came as the president was increasingly kowtowing to agribusiness, encouraged by voracious demand for soy from China. Tension within the administration grew when Mato Grosso state’s Gov. Blairo Maggi, one of the world’s largest soybean producers, and others lobbied against some of the anti-deforestation measures.

Lula and Silva were also at odds over the mammoth Belo Monte Dam, a project that displaced some 40,000 people and dried up stretches of the Xingu River that Indigenous and other communities depended upon for fish. Silva opposed the project; Lula said it was necessary to meet the nation’s growing energy needs and hasn’t expressed any regret since, despite the plant’s impact and the fact it is generating far below installed capacity.

After Silva resigned, she quit Lula’s Workers’ Party and became a fierce critic of him and his successor, Dilma Rousseff. Silva and Lula didn’t begin to reconcile until this year’s presidential campaign, finding common cause in defeating Bolsonaro, whom they deemed an environmental villain and would-be authoritarian.

Caetano Scannavino, coordinator of Health and Happiness, an Amazon nonprofit that supports sustainable projects, said Silva “grew to become someone larger than only an environment minister.”

“This is important, as the challenges in the environmental area are even greater than two decades ago,” Scannavino said, citing growing criminal activities in the Amazon and increasing pressure from agribusiness eager to export to China and Europe. “Silva’s success is Brazil’s success in the world, too. She deserves all support.”

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AP writer Carla Bridi contributed from Brasilia and Diane Jeantet from Rio de Janeiro.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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December 29, 2022
Guns temporarily banned from Brazil’s capital ahead of Lula da Silva’s inauguration | CNN

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CNN
—

A Brazilian Supreme Court judge on Wednesday issued a four-day ban on carrying firearms in the capital as a precautionary measure ahead of the January 1 inauguration of President-elect Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva.

In his ruling that temporarily suspends the licenses of registered gun owners, Judge Alexandre de Moraes wrote that “terrorist groups financed by shameless magnates” have been committing crimes against the rule of law in recent weeks, which is why public safety had to be made secure via a temporary firearms ban.

If a registered gun owner is caught in Brasilia with a firearm in those four days, they can be prosecuted for illegally carrying a weapon, according to the ruling.

Lula da Silva’s team had requested a ban on firearms at the inauguration days after police arrested a man on suspicion of planting and possessing explosive devices at Brasilia International Airport.

The suspect, identified as 54-year-old gas station manager George Washington de Oliveira Sousa, is a supporter of incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and told the police in a statement, seen by CNN, that he intended to “create chaos” so as to prevent Lula da Silva from taking office again in January.

The firearms ban was to start on Wednesday at 6 p.m. local time (4 p.m. ET) and will run through the end of Sunday. It will not apply to active members of the armed forces, policemen and private security guards, Moraes wrote.

Even though Bolsonaro’s administration has said it is cooperating with the transition of power, the far-right leader has stopped short of explicitly conceding his election loss on October 30. In protest, thousands of his supporters have gathered at military barracks across the country, asking the army to step in as they claim, with no evidence, that the election was stolen.

According to the police statement, Sousa arrived in Brasilia from his home state of Para on October 12 to join other Bolsonaro supporters, who were camped in front of the Armed Forces headquarters in the city.

Sousa said he was inspired by President Bolsonaro to spend over $30,000 to purchase the guns and ammunition, according to his statement. CNN has reached out to Bolsonaro for comment.

Violence has flared in the country ahead of Lula da Silva’s inauguration.

In mid-December, protesters clashed with police in the capital Brasilia as they attempted to break into a federal police building following the arrest of an outspoken Bolsonaro supporter.

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December 28, 2022
After presidency, unclear fate for Brazil’s brash Bolsonaro

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BRASILIA, Brazil — Jair Bolsonaro told supporters that the future could only bring him three possibilities: arrest, death or a second term as Brazil’s president.

None of those outcomes came to pass. And his Oct. 30 loss to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva set off two months of relative silence for the self-styled standard-bearer of the Brazilian conservative movement.

Bolsonaro’s oft-cited motto is “God, Family, Country,” and as president he handed more power to the armed forces and loosened gun restrictions. Many of Bolsonaro’s far-right supporters remain in his thrall and have camped outside military buildings, pleading futilely for army intervention that would keep the president in power.

But Bolsonaro authorized his chief-of-staff to preside over the transition process, and moving trucks have started showing up at the presidential palace and residence. Personal items were spotted being removed, especially art given as gifts by supporters – including life-size wooden sculptures of Bolsonaro and a motorcycle.

A seven-term fringe lawmaker before winning his presidential campaign in 2018, Bolsonaro has discussed holding a salaried position in his Liberal Party, a party executive involved in discussions told The Associated Press, asking not to be identified because plans haven’t been announced.

Bolsonaro addressed backers in the capital, Brasilia, once after he lost the vote, saying briefly that the armed forces were under his control. A second time, he stood in silence as backers prayed for him.

Some supporters insist that Bolsonaro would not let them down by giving up the fight but others have started to decamp from important sites. According to Bolsonaro’s official daily agenda, he worked just over an hour each day from the election until Dec. 23.

The Liberal Party will be the biggest party in both the Lower House and Senate. It has declared its opposition to Lula’s incoming government and Bolsonaro is expected to lead the effort within the party, the party executive said.

But many of the Liberal Party’s members are neither fully loyal to Bolsonaro nor ideologically aligned with him, and they will have incentives to work with the new administration, said Guilherme Casarões, political analyst and professor at Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo. The Liberal Party is considered centrist and is known for making deals with the sitting government.

“That makes it harder to have the ideological fidelity that Bolsonaro likes to maintain,” said Casarões. “If he doesn’t manage to have total control over the Liberal Party, we are going to see a new split.”

Bolsonaro got 49% of the presidential vote, fuelling the possibility of a presidential run in 2026 and making him a possible aid to candidates in the 2024 municipal elections, said Eduardo Grin, political analyst and professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

However, Grin noted there is a history of strong Brazilian candidates failing to sustain support in subsequent years. And the governors of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, Brazil’s two most populous states, could prove more palatable options to conservative voters.

The customary final act for outgoing presidents is handing over the presidential sash to their successor. Bolsonaro’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether he will attend Lula’s inauguration.

The last time a president declined to hand over the sash was in 1985, marking the end of the nation’s two-decade military dictatorship and the return of democracy.

Either way, the inauguration will come as a blow to Bolsonaro’s backers, said analyst Mario Sérgio Lima, from Medley Advisors.

“As his supporters are used to radicalism, they are expecting catharsis. When they see Lula being sworn in, they will feel betrayed, like he (Bolsonaro) had the power in his hands and did nothing,” said Lima. “For them, it is a sign of weakness.”

Bolsonaro also faces swirling legal threats. The Supreme Court is investigating him on suspicion of illegally spreading lies about topics including COVID-19 vaccines, Supreme Court justices, releasing confidential information from an ongoing investigation and interfering improperly with the Federal Police. The Supreme Court is the only government body that can investigate a sitting president or federal lawmaker.

As of Jan. 1, Bolsonaro will no longer enjoy the legal protection of sitting leaders, and could face fresh charges in lower courts. After Lula was convicted of corruption and money laundering by lower courts in 2018, he was deemed ineligible to run in that year’s presidential election and spent more than a year in jail. His convictions were later annulled on the grounds that he was tried in a court without proper jurisdiction.

“But Lula had an entire party behind him to bring him up again, and that isn’t the case for Bolsonaro,” said Lima, adding that Bolsonaro would struggle to maintain allies fighting for his cause.

And any eventual conviction could jeopardize a possible 2026 run by Bolsonaro to return to his former job, in addition to all the other challenges he faces.

“The political fate of Bolsonaro and Brazil’s extreme right has more stumbling blocks than it appears,” said Grin. “There will be more difficulties than ease.”

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Associated Press writer Diane Jeantet contributed to this report from Rio de Janeiro.

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December 27, 2022
Bolsonaro supporters clash with police in Brazil’s capital

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RIO DE JANEIRO — Supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro clashed with police Monday, setting fire to several vehicles and allegedly attempting to invade the federal police’s headquarters in capital city Brasilia.

Images of protesters, many wearing the yellow and green of Brazil’s flag that has come to symbolize Bolsonarismo, circulated on local television channels and social media.

The motives behind the protests remained unclear and the police did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment.

Since Bolsonaro lost re-election to da Silva on Oct. 30, his supporters have gathered across the country refusing to concede defeat and asking for the armed forces to intervene. Earlier Monday, the nation’s electoral authority awarded da Silva and his vice president an official certification, sealing their victory.

“The depredation and attempted invasion of the Federal Police building in Brasilia are unacceptable,” said Flavio Dino, future Justice and Public Security Minister in the upcoming administration of President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Police in full gear were rushed to the Federal Police’s headquarters as back up, as officers had to use stun grenades and rubber bullets, local media reported. Police also blocked several avenues and streets across Brasilia.

Protesters elsewhere set at least one bus on fire and were seen gathering metal barriers.

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December 12, 2022
Brazil election body rejects Bolsonaro’s push to void votes

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RIO DE JANEIRO — The head of Brazil’s electoral authority on Wednesday rejected the request from President Jair Bolsonaro and his political party to annul ballots cast on most electronic voting machines, which would have overturned the Oct. 30 election.

Alexandre de Moraes had issued a prior ruling that implicitly raised the possibility that Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party could suffer from such a challenge. He conditioned analysis of the request on the presentation of an amended report to include results from the first electoral round, on Oct. 2, in which the party won more seats in both congressional houses than any other, and he established a 24-hour deadline.

Earlier Wednesday, party president Valdemar Costa and lawyer Marcelo de Bessa held a press conference and said there would be no amended report.

“The complete bad faith of the plaintiff’s bizarre and illicit request … was proven, both by the refusal to add to the initial petition and the total absence of any evidence of irregularities and the existence of a totally fraudulent narrative of the facts,” de Moraes wrote in his decision hours later.

He also ordered the suspension of government funds for the Liberal Party’s coalition until a fine of 23 million reais ($4.3 million) for bad faith litigation is paid.

On Tuesday, de Bessa filed a 33-page request on behalf of Bolsonaro and Costa citing a software bug in the majority of Brazil’s machines — they lack individual identification numbers in their internal logs — to argue all votes they recorded should be nullified. De Bessa said that doing so would leave Bolsonaro with 51% of the remaining valid votes.

Neither Costa nor de Bessa have explained how the bug might have affected election results. Independent experts consulted by The Associated Press said that, while newly discovered, it doesn’t affect reliability and each voting machine is still readily identifiable through other means. In his ruling on Thursday, de Moraes noted the same.

He also wrote that the challenge to the vote appeared aimed at incentivizing anti-democratic protest movements and creating tumult, and ordered the investigation of Costa and the consultant hired to conduct an evaluation.

“De Moraes’ message to the political establishment is: the game is over. Questioning the result of the elections is not fair play, and people and institutions who do that will be punished harshly,” said Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

In the press conference on Wednesday, Costa said his intention is merely to prevent the results of the 2022 vote from haunting Brazil into the future.

The electoral authority on Oct. 30 ratified the victory of Bolsonaro’s nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and even many of the president’s allies quickly accepted the results. Protesters in cities across the country have steadfastly refused to do the same, particularly with Bolsonaro declining to concede.

Bolsonaro spent more than a year claiming Brazil’s electronic voting system is prone to fraud, without ever presenting evidence.

The South American nation began using an electronic voting system in 1996 and election security experts consider such systems less secure than hand-marked paper ballots, because they leave no auditable paper trail. But Brazil’s system has been closely scrutinized by domestic and international experts who have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud.

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November 23, 2022