On January 9, pro- Jair Bolsonaro protestors stormed the Presidential Palace, Supreme Court, and Congressional buildings in Brasilia, Brazil. Protesters trashed offices after ten weeks of camping outside Brazilian army headquarters and demanded military intervention in overturning Lula de Silva’s presidential election.
Earlier in November, former President Jair Bolsonaro lost the election to his left-wing rival, Lula de Silva, after years of instilling in his supporters a fear of Brazil’s democratic institutions. He claimed that the electronic voting system was fraudulent, Brazil being the only country in the world to use fully digitalized voting systems without paper backups.
As described by a news article in The New York Times Brazil Bureau Chief Jack Nicas, “The movement had become almost its own self-animating beast that was going to push forward towards the capital with or without [Bolsonaro].” Bolsonaro supporters’ fears of Lula’s communist party turning Brazil into an authoritarian country can be traced back to Brazil’s military dictatorship in 1964. “There was a sense of identity that a lot of people found in the movement. They found purpose in it… they were part of something larger than themselves,” Nicas added.
Gabe Swisher-Rosa ’23 who has family in Brazil, shared, “I cannot lie, I saw these protests coming. On Election Day I said to my dad that it’s going to be bad no matter who wins… He continued, “If Jair [won] the country [was] going to keep going down because of the government, if Lula [won, it was] going to be jeopardized by those who view Jair as a Christ figure when the protests began. I was immediately scared for my family back home but was also just very disappointed that I was right.”
At a rally leading up to November elections, Bolsonaro urged his supporters, “For all of us we have three alternatives, especially for me: arrest, death, or victory.” Throughout his Presidency, Bolsonaro leaned on out-of-context reports, conspiracy theories, and circumstantial evidence, often presented with no attribution, to prove the fraudulence behind Brazil’s electoral system. However, there has been no evidence of fraud in the electronic voting system since the start of their use in 1996; rather, the machines have helped reduce voter fraud.
A survey conducted in 2022 by The New York Times showed that three out of four of Bolsonaro’s supporters distrusted Brazil’s voting system, with worries of election rigging and willingness to protest upon Bolsonaro’s loss. “Those doubts,” Nicas wrote, “have undermined one of the world’s largest democracies and are likely to end up as…part of a global trend of lies and conspiracy theories, often stoked by populist leaders and amplified by the internet, that are threatening democratic norms in the United States and across the world.”
When asked about the resemblance of Brazilian protests to the U.S capitol raid on January 6th, 2021, Swisher-Rosa said, “We have now set a precedent…of: if you don’t like the results of an election it is entirely justified and encouraged to attack the nation’s capital. I’m worried about the future of democracy as I view this as a result of a lack of faith in the democratic process and a denouncement of democracy as a whole.”
Belle Fraga ’26, who lives in Brazil, commented on the media’s role in the Brazilian anti-government protests, sharing, “In Brazil, the main form of media is through cable. Many channels [do] not like Bolsonaro because he did not offer the same amount of financial support as when Lula was President. [As a result, these channels] were always advertising things against Bolsonaro and subconsciously pro-Lula,” which led the less-educated general public to be swayed with little knowledge regarding Lula’s past government actions.
Reflecting on Brazil’s future, Swisher-Rosa concluded, “I think it’s important to acknowledge the history of corruption that has plagued Brazil and Latin America for decades. We have seen dictators come and go, revolutions ignite and burn out, and America has been in the middle, if not in the center, of it all. I think now more than ever is the time for the United States to step back and let Brazil fix itself for once. The people are in crisis and they need guidance, but it is not the place of an outside force to provide it.”