Bolsonarismo isn’t going away. But Brazil’s democracy may be stronger.
For months, and really years, before Brazil’s 2022 presidential elections, Jair Bolsonaro sowed doubts about Brazilian democracy and electoral institutions. On Sunday, backers of the right-wing former president proved the potency of that message as they stormed the seats of government power in Brasília.
The attack proved the strength of the right-wing movement that Bolsonaro helped rekindle may outlast the man himself, even as Brazil’s democratic and judicial institutions have responded quickly and aggressively to the threat.
At least 1,200 people have been detained for questioning in the aftermath of the riots, where mobs attacked the Supreme Court, Congress, and presidential palace in the capital. The Supreme Court suspended the governor of Brasília, accusing him of abetting the violence, and a top justice promised to hold accountable all those responsible for the riots, including financiers and public officials. Security forces dismantled tent camps set up by Bolsonaro supporters, who’d been staked out for weeks after Bolsonaro lost Brazil’s presidential runoff to left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, known as Lula.
Bolsonaro never conceded the election, but institutions and politicians, including political allies of Bolsonaro, lined up to validate Lula’s victory. Lula was inaugurated, as planned, on January 1, promising to be a president for all Brazilians. Bolsonaro slunk off to Florida.
But, on January 8, with Lula a week into his term, supporters loyal to Bolsonaro unleashed an attack on the country’s democratic symbols, the worst assault on democracy since Brazil transitioned away from a military dictatorship in the 1980s.
It was an uprising that was ultimately going to fail, at least when it came to reversing or influencing an electoral outcome. But it was still a very public show of force for a Bolsonarismo, and that may have been a victory in itself.What does this say about the strength of Bolsonarismo?
On the day the mob swarmed, the political process had run its course. Lula was sworn into office on January 1, the transition over and his government in place. Bolsonaro had been out of power for a week, doing random things as a Florida Man. (On Monday, Bolsonaro was reportedly hospitalized for abdominal pain, possibly connected to a stab wound he received during the 2018 election.)
But this assault may have been less about elections past and more about the future of the right-wing movement in Brazil. Congress was in recess at the time, leaving the building mostly empty. Lula was away from the presidential palace. But the images of Bolsonaro supporters, clad in yellow and green, scaling walls, breaking windows, and swarming the seats of power, nonetheless showed a government under siege. “They created all the images they wanted, they knew they would be arrested — they wanted to create martyrs,” said Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, a professor in the School of Geography at the University College Dublin, who has studied the far right in Brazil.
