The hunt for perpetrators storming Brasilia continues unabated

• Boris van der Spek

  correspondent Latin America

although the storming of government buildings in the Square of the Three Powers is almost two weeks ago, the threat to democracy in Brazil has not yet passed. President Lula continues to convey that message. “A lot of people were complicit in this,” he said at one of his first press conferences after the storming. “I am convinced that the door of the Planalto (the presidential palace, ed.) was opened so that people could enter.”

For him it is certain: the thousands of radical supporters of former President Bolsonaro, who stormed the parliament building, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace because they do not accept the results of the presidential election, received help from within. The president has announced that all current presidential personnel will be screened for background and social media statements.

In addition, the left-wing president has started cleaning up the security apparatus. Brazil has a complicated security system, but support for Bolsonaro, himself a former army captain, is strong at all levels.

President Lula fired army chief Julio Cesar de Arruda on Saturday, who had only held that position since December 30. According to Lula, several armed forces under Arruda’s command helped the demonstrators.

About 50 soldiers responsible for security at the presidential palace have also been fired. The government has also dismissed nearly all regional highway police chiefs and replaced 18 national police chiefs.

In addition to heavy measures to prevent a repeat of January 8, the hunt for those directly involved continues unabated. More than 900 people have been locked up as a precaution and at least forty have already been charged. This group is charged with terrorism, among other things.

The investigations also focus on Bolsonaro himself. The former president, who resides in the US state of Florida, shared a video two days before the storm that questioned Lula’s election victory.

Because of these statements bolsonaristas come to believe in electoral fraud, although no evidence of irregularities has ever been found. Bolsonaro could be guilty of sedition with his action and his statements.

Watch how Bolsonaro supporters called on each other on social media to come to Brasilia:

However, the Bolsonaro camp went further than just casting doubt on the election results. A week ago, during a search of Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro’s justice minister and Brasilia’s chief of police at the time of the storm, a draft decree was found.

With that decree, the powerful electoral commission would be sidelined and the elections could be declared invalid. It suggests, according to Lula supporters, that there was a larger, preconceived plan to overthrow democracy with an institutional coup.

The fact that Minister Torres left for the US just before the storm, while he was responsible for security in the capital, makes him even more suspicious. He may have collaborated with the radical Bolsonaro supporters or at least been negligent. When he returned to Brazil, he was immediately arrested at the airport.

The fact that Lula does not shy away from serious interventions also has to do with the sentiment that now prevails among a large part of the population. Polls show that a large majority rejects the storming, that they believe that the police have not done their job well and that they support Lula’s interventions for the time being. Among them are many Bolsonaro supporters who are not behind the violence.

Within Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, outspoken support is also crumbling. Where the former president was previously seen as the dream opposition leader, he has now fallen from his pedestal. Not only because of his possible role in the storming, but also because of the investigations into his election campaign and his destructive corona policy, among other things.

Lula knows he has to strike while the iron is hot. After the storming, he called together all the governors of the federal states and, despite his harsh interventions, is also seeking rapprochement with the army.

In politics too, moderates are now sympathetic to the president, having seen how democracy has faltered. It is support that Lula desperately needs if he wants to strengthen the young democracy again.