For my family, it was supposed to be a lazy Sunday – we were enjoying “caipirinhas” and other traditional Brazilian fare during our final day in the country after three weeks of holiday vacation.
Then the news broke that thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro had stormed the headquarters of all branches of the federal government in the capital, Brasilia, vandalizing the buildings of the Plaza of the Three Powers – Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace.
The invasion of these key government buildings, which eerily mirrors the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, followed two months of protests around the country by Bolsonaro’s supporters. Without evidence, they claim the election in October – where Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva narrowly defeated Bolsonaro – was rigged or stolen. Though a tight run-off, Lula da Silva still won by more than 2 million votes.
Sunday’s stunning attack comes a week after Lula da Silva was sworn into office in a January 1 inauguration. Bolsonaro eschewed the traditional protocols of the transfer of power and instead opted to travel to the United States amid potential criminal investigations into his time as president.
Taking advantage of what the new president called “the silence of a Sunday,” the strategic objective of Bolsonaro’s allies couldn’t be clearer: Destabilize Latin America’s largest democracy.
Opening act of an attempted coup
Already, many Brazilian political pundits are speculating that the intruders aimed not only to invade the country’s seat of government but also to stage a prolonged occupation of key buildings. Doing so would prevent Lula da Silva’s government from effectively functioning, in the hopes that pro-Bolsonaro forces within the military and law enforcement might intervene, creating the necessary conditions for Bolsonaro to return to Brazil and seize power.
There is no way to sugarcoat what happened on Sunday – these attacks were the opening act of an attempted coup d’etat.
Lula da Silva, who was traveling in the state of São Paulo at the time of the attacks, held an impromptu press conference and delivered a terse denunciation of the invasion, calling out Bolsonaro and his supporters, and stating emphatically that all of the vandals responsible will be investigated and prosecuted.
He placed the blame for the attack squarely at the feet of his predecessor. He called the violence “unprecedented” in Brazil’s history and said that a robust investigation would get to the bottom of not only who participated but also who financed and supported these “Bolsonaristas”, as they are referred to in Portuguese.
Echoes of January 6
Like the political dynamic in the US that led to the January 6 insurrection, the events in Brasilia are the latest chapter in the ongoing divisions of a deeply polarized country.
Lula da Silva’s October victory marked a sharp rebuke of Bolsonaro and his brand of tropical MAGA called “Bolsonarismo”. Like former US President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro had a rocky term in office riddled with controversy, especially his handling of Covid-19. (Brazil has suffered nearly 700,000 deaths in the pandemic, according to the World Health Organization.)
Bolsonaro’s anti-LGBTQ agenda, weak environmental policies and autocratic tendencies made him something of a pariah among the country’s left and earned him the moniker “Trump of the Tropics”.
But Lula da Silva, now in his third term as president, is in some ways an equally controversial and polarizing figure. Having served two terms from 2003 to 2011, he made a remarkable political comeback with his 2022 victory. Only a few years before once more seeking the presidency, he was serving a prison sentence for his role in Brazil’s largest corruption scandal, dubbed “Operation Car Wash.”
But Brazil’s judiciary threw out his conviction in 2021, freeing him to run again. Many on the left saw Lula da Silva as the perfect antidote to Bolsonaro and the hard-right turn toward which he had steered the country.
Bolsonaro didn’t concede his October 30 defeat but gave a number of signals indicating he was not planning an aggressive challenge to the election – a move that infuriated many of his die-hard supporters while also giving them hope a bigger plan might be in the works to take back power.
For weeks leading up to the January 1 inauguration, pro-Bolsonaro elements camped out in Brasilia, and there was even an arrest last month in a suspected bombing plot to disrupt Lula da Silva from taking office. But the transfer of power went off without a hitch in the new year.
Where Lula goes from here
Like millions of Brazilians across this country of nearly 220 million, I have been glued to local media, watching an event that is equally if not more startling than the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Only hours into this historic event, there was no denying that the history books will record it as the most significant assault on Latin America’s largest democracy since Brazil returned to democratic elections in the late 1980s.
How Lula da Silva handles this assault on democracy will emerge as the hallmark of his third term in office. He was elected to undo many of the hard-right policies of the Bolsonaro government, reinsert Brazil into the international global economic order, and, as the steward of the Amazon rainforest and one of the world’s largest landmasses, reposition the country on the vanguard of the planet’s existential threat posed by climate change.
He still must address all those issues but now focus on other far more pressing challenges: reestablish the rule of law; reaffirm the country’s military, law enforcement and civil institutions’ dedication to democratic institutions; and revitalize Brazilians’ belief in democracy.
His presidency is a little over a week old, but it now must quickly address a real and ongoing threat to democracy.
Arick Wierson is an Emmy Award-winning television producer and former senior media adviser to former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Wierson holds a master’s degree in economics from the State University of Campinas in Brazil’s state of São Paulo. He has worked with the country for nearly 30 years, advising corporate and political clients on communications strategies.