Supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro broke through police barricades and stormed the National Congress building on Sunday to protest the inauguration of left-wing former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.
Social media posts show that insurgents have also raided the nearby presidential palace and the Brazilian Supreme Court building.
The area around the parliament building in Brasilia was cordoned off, but hundreds of Bolsonaro supporters, who refuse to accept Lula’s electoral victory, broke in and climbed ramps to the roof of the modernist building, he noted an AFP photographer at the scene.
What is happening in the building of the Brazilian Senate and Chamber of Deputies is reminiscent of the scenes from the events of January 6, 2021 in Washington, when Donald Trump’s supporters refused to accept his defeat in the US presidential election and took storm the Capitol.
Security forces tried unsuccessfully to disperse the crowd with tear gas.
In the second round of the October 30 presidential election, the left Lula won by a narrow margin, defeating the far right Bolsonaro. Lula received 50.9% of the vote and Bolsonaro 49.1%.
Bolsonaro has so far clearly not conceded defeat, even though Vice President Hamilton Moran did so a few days after the election. Mouran also expressed confidence that the elections were held without fraud.
Before the election, Bolsonaro has repeatedly questioned the electoral system and indicated that he may not recognize the result. At the end of last year, Bolsonaro left Brazil and went to the US state of Florida, where Trump also lives.
Lula’s inauguration as president took place on January 1.
