BRASILIA, Dec 12 (Reuters) – Supporters of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday tried to invade the federal police headquarters within the capital Brasilia, in a flash of post-election violence on the day the president’s electoral defeat was licensed.
Reuters witnesses noticed Bolsonaro supporters, many of their trademark yellow nationwide soccer jerseys or draped in Brazilian flags, confronting safety forces at police headquarters. Police fired stun grenades and tear gasoline to disperse the group. Nearby buses and automobiles have been set on hearth.
Federal police mentioned “disturbances” close to the headquarters have been being dealt with with help from capital safety forces.
The violence unfolded after a Bolsonaro supporter was detained for allegedly organizing violent “anti-democratic acts,” in response to the choose who ordered his arrest.
Earlier on Monday, the federal electoral courtroom (TSE) licensed the Oct. 30 election victory of Bolsonaro’s leftist rival, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as president. After months of baseless recommendations that Brazil’s voting system is susceptible to fraud, Bolsonaro has neither conceded defeat to Lula nor has he formally blocked the handover of energy.
But some of the president’s most diehard supporters have blocked highways in protest and camped out in entrance of military barracks, calling for a army coup to bar Lula from workplace.
Hundreds of Bolsonaro supporters gathered exterior the presidential residence on Monday afternoon with banners calling for “military intervention.” The president joined them for a public prayer however didn’t tackle the group.
“There’s not going to be an inauguration,” mentioned Jose Trindade, 58, one of the Bolsonaro supporters within the crowd. “Bolsonaro was re-elected, but they stole it. So only the army can put things in order.”
The conspiracy theories and subsequent violence have rekindled reminiscences of the January 2021 invasion of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump. It additionally raises safety considerations about Jan. 1, when Lula takes workplace in a public ceremony in Brasilia.
Senator Randolfe Rodrigues, a key Lula aide, mentioned there have been considerations in regards to the bodily security of Lula and Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin, as protesters had surrounded the lodge the place he’s staying in Brasilia. Lula’s crew denied studies that Lula can be faraway from the lodge by helicopter.
[1/13] A bus is seen on hearth as supporters of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro protest after supreme courtroom justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered a brief arrest warrant of indigenous chief Jose Acacio Serere Xavante for alleged anti-democratic acts, in Brasilia, Brazil, December 12, 2022. REUTERS/Adriano Machado
Brasilia’s public safety officers mentioned that they had secured the realm round Lula’s lodge, and urged motorists to keep away from the middle of the town the place many roads had been closed.
SPARKED BY ARREST
The violence in Brasilia got here after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has led probes into Bolsonaro and his allies, on Monday ordered the momentary arrest of José Acácio Serere Xavante for allegedly finishing up anti-democratic acts.
Xavante, an indigenous chief, is among the many Bolsonaro supporters who’ve protested in defiance of the Oct. 30 election end result.
“I cannot accept criminals reigning in Brasil,” Xavante tweeted final month. “Lula cannot be certified.”
Last week, Bolsonaro broke weeks of post-election silence to say that his state of affairs “hurts my soul.”
“Who decides where I go are you. Who decides which way the armed forces go are you,” Bolsonaro instructed his supporters on the gates of the presidential residence on Friday.
In an announcement, the Supreme Court mentioned Moraes “decreed the temporary arrest, for 10 days, of the indigenous José Acácio Serere Xavante, due to evidence of the commission of crimes of threat, persecution and violent abolition of the Democratic State of Law.”
It mentioned Xavante had led protests throughout Brasilia and had used “his position as chief of the Xavante people to enlist indigenous and non-indigenous people to commit crimes,” threatening Lula and Supreme Court justices.
Xavante had “expressly summoned armed people to prevent the certification of elected” politicians, the assertion added.
Reporting by Ueslei Marcelino and Victor Borges; Additional reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello and Carolina Pulice; Editing by Leslie Adler and Stephen Coates
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