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Supporters of Brazil’s far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro have invaded the nation’s Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Courtroom, in a grim echo of the US Capitol invasion two years in the past by followers of former president Donald Trump.
Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who defeated Mr Bolsonaro in essentially the most fraught election in a era final yr, introduced a federal safety intervention in Brasilia lasting till January 31.
He blamed Bolsonaro for the invasion, and complained a couple of lack of safety within the capital, saying it had let “fascists” and “fanatics” wreak havoc.
All the rioters could be recognized and punished, Lula mentioned, whereas pledging to root out the financiers of the motion. Lula was removed from the capital, on an official journey to Sao Paulo state.
The sight of hundreds of yellow-and-green clad protesters operating riot within the capital capped months of stress following the October 30 vote.
Mr Bolsonaro, an acolyte of Mr Trump’s who has but to concede defeat, peddled the false declare that Brazil’s digital voting system was vulnerable to fraud, spawning a violent motion of election deniers.
The invasion poses a direct downside for President Lula, who was solely inaugurated on January 1 and has pledged to unite a nation torn by Bolsonaro’s nationalist populism.
Tv photographs confirmed protesters breaking into the Supreme Courtroom and Congress, chanting slogans and smashing furnishings. Native media estimated about 3000 folks had been concerned.
Mr Bolsonaro, who has barely spoken in public since dropping the election, left Brazil for Florida 48 hours earlier than the tip of his mandate and was absent from Lula’s inauguration.
The violent scenes in Brasilia might amplify the authorized dangers to Mr Bolsonaro, who has to date not commented on the invasions.
The Supreme Courtroom was ransacked by the occupiers, in line with social media photographs that confirmed protesters shattering the home windows of the modernist constructing.
A policeman on horseback was surrounded by shouting demonstrators armed with sticks who knocked him off his mount.
Brasilia Governor Ibaneis Rocha instructed Reuters that each one safety forces had been deployed to confront the rioters. He subsequently wrote on Twitter that he had fired his high safety official, Anderson Torres, beforehand Mr Bolsonaro’s justice minister.
The US Embassy in Brasilia warned US residents to keep away from the world till additional discover.
“Violence has no place in a democracy,” Douglas Koneff, the US chargé d’affaires in Brasilia, wrote on Twitter.
On Saturday, with rumors of a confrontation brewing, Justice Minister Flávio Dino licensed the deployment of the Nationwide Public Safety Power. On Sunday, he wrote on Twitter, “this absurd try to impose the need by drive won’t prevail.”
Latin American leaders had been fast to sentence the scenes.
“All my solidarity with Lula and the folks of Brazil,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro tweeted. “Fascism decides to conduct a coup.”
In Washington in 2021, Trump supporters attacked police, broke by barricades and stormed the Capitol in a failed effort to stop congressional certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Mr Trump, who has introduced a 3rd bid for the presidency, in 2024, had pressured his vp, Mike Pence, to not certify the vote, and he continues to say falsely that the 2020 election was stolen from him by widespread fraud.
– AAP
