A supporter of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro during the assault on the headquarters of the Presidency, this Sunday in Brasilia. ADRIANO MACHADO (REUTERS)
Thousands of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro plunged the country into the most serious crisis since the end of the military dictatorship 38 years ago.
A crowd of radicals stormed the headquarters of Congress, the Supreme Court and the Presidency in Brasilia with a clearly coup-like purpose: to demand an intervention by the Army to remove Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from power, who took office a week ago.
The police managed to retake control of the three powers after hours of chaos, of which not only remains the trace of the destruction and acts of vandalism, but also a deep wound in the heart of democracy.
Lula, who had to decree the federal intervention in Brasilia to stop the attack, blamed the "fascists" and pointed, without naming him, to Bolsonaro for instigating the rejection of the electoral result and encouraging a climate of intolerance before the inauguration of the new Government.
The leadership of the former president's party immediately dissociated himself from the events, but he waited several hours before speaking from Florida, where he had gone to avoid attending the transfer of powers.
Only after the assault had failed did he affirm that "invasion of public buildings is beyond the rule" and repudiated the accusations that implicated him in the attempt.
They were late words, petty in the face of the seriousness of the events and that show, once again, the danger that Bolsonaro has always represented for democracy.
This support for his most radical supporters, often expressed with ambiguous rhetoric, has marked his speech for at least two months, when Lula defeated him in the second round.
The concentrations and mobilizations of far-right militants were only a warning and, although the inauguration ceremony took place on Sunday, January 1, without major incidents, the situation precipitated this Sunday in a fateful day for all Democrats, which resulted in some 150 arrests. .
Behind what happened is, ultimately, not only Bolsonaro's inability to accept defeat, but the poison of a vociferous far-right that, both in the United States and in Brazil and other countries, is not capable of accepting the rules of the game. democratic and seeks by all means, including brute force, to seize power.
In the case of Brazil, it is evident that, despite Lula's triumph, Bolsonarismo still has deep roots in certain social sectors.
Something similar happened in 2020 in the United States, after Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.
And if the terrifying images of Brasilia resonate with the echoes of January 6, 2021, the parallelism between the two attacks also shows that half measures are not valid in condemning the events.
The international community unequivocally repudiated the assault.
This is an important support that Lula, knowing that he will only receive stabs from Bolsonaro and his supporters, should make the most of it.
It is not an easy journey that remains for him.
His predecessor left a broken country and the very serious crisis this Sunday has only deepened that fracture.
to overcome it,