Hundreds of supporters of Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro broke through police barricades and stormed Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court on Sunday in a dramatic protest against the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. In the past week.
A sea of protesters clad in the green and yellow of the flag flooded the seat of power in Brasilia, invading the floor of Congress and scaling the roof of the iconic building to unfurl a banner calling on the Brazilian armed forces: “INTERVENTION” .
Social media footage showed rioters breaking doors and windows to gain entry to the Capitol building, then storming in, vandalizing lawmakers’ offices and using the inclined speaker’s dais on the floor of the legislature as a slide as they yelled. insults directed at absent legislators.
One video showed a crowd outside pulling a police officer off his horse and slamming him to the ground.
The shocking images recalled the invasion of the United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021 by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, an ally of Bolsonaro.
Police, who had established a security cordon around Brasilia’s Plaza de los Tres Poderes, home to the classic modernist buildings of the National Congress, the Planalto Palace and the Supreme Court, fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse the protesters. unsuccessful protesters
‘Fraudulent election’
Protester Sarah Lima told AFP they were demanding a review of veteran leftist Lula’s October 30 electoral victory over Bolsonaro.
Lula, who took office on Sunday, won the vote by a narrow margin of 50.9 percent to 49.1 percent. Bolsonaro, who left for the US state of Florida on the penultimate day of his term, has alleged that he is the victim of a conspiracy against him by the Brazilian electoral authorities.
“We need to restore order after this fraudulent election,” said Lima, a 27-year-old production engineer who wore the yellow jersey of the Brazilian soccer team — a symbol that Bolsonaro supporters have claimed as their own — and protested with her young twin. daughters
“I am here for the story, for my daughters,” she added.
The newly installed Minister of Justice and Public Security, Flavio Dino, described the invasion as “an absurd attempt to impose the will (of the protesters) by force.”
“Will not prevail,” he wrote on Twitter.
“The government of the federal district (of Brasilia) is sending reinforcements and the forces on the ground are acting at this moment.”
The riots occurred when Lula, 77, was in the country’s southeastern city of Araraquara, visiting a region devastated by flooding late last year.
Bolsonaro’s hardline supporters have been protesting outside military bases in Brazil since his electoral defeat, calling for an intervention by the army to prevent Lula, who previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, from returning to power.
© Agence France-Presse
