Pro-Bolsonaro supporters storm Brazil’s gov’t buildings in Jan 6.-style attack

Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday stormed Brazil’s Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court, refusing to accept his recent re-election defeat — in a stunning echo of the US’s Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Thousands of the former Brazilian president’s loyalists flooded the buildings in the country’s capital of Brasilia despite security barriers, just a week after leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s inauguration.
Donning the green and yellow of the Brazilian flag as a show of support for Bolsonaro, the rioters broke windows and climbed onto the roofs of the government buildings.
“The government of the Federal District has ensured there will be reinforcements. And the forces at our disposal are at work,” the country’s justice minister, Flavio Dino, wrote on Twitter, referring to the crews pushing back rioters.
“This absurd attempt to impose their will by force will not prevail,” he said of protesters.
Supporters of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, storm the National Congress building in Brasilia on Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. AP
Rioters break into a building Sunday during a demonstration against President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the country’s capital of Brasilia. REUTERS
Lula was voted into office Oct. 30, but Bolsonaro has repeatedly refuted the election’s results. Many of his diehard supporters have refused to accept the outcome, as well.
Protesters storm the the National Congress building in Brazil on Sunday. AP
Supporters of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, riot Sunday over October’s election results. REUTERS
The ex-president is not currently in Brazil and was spotted in Florida in the past week. Lula is not currently in the nation’s capital.
The violent protests are reminiscent of the attack on the US Congress in January 2020, when supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, to try to overturn the results of the election he lost to President Biden.
With Post wires