Photo by Matheus Câmara da Silva, Unsplash.
Recently, in the capital Brasilia, thousands of protestors backing ex-President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the congress, the presidential palace and supreme court. For context, in the October 2022 elections, Bolsonaro lost narrowly to left-wing leader Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. A week before the protests, Lula da Silva had just been sworn in as president. This article seeks to discuss the reasons for the riots, like social media, Bolsonaro himself, and the growing camps set up by Bolsonaro’s supporters. As for the impacts, this article will explore the cultural and economic impact of the riots.
As for the reason for the riots, one such reason was social media. As we all know, news spreads fast through social media. Code words were spread throughout Twitter, Tiktok and Telegram, and that got more people involved. Notably, in Twitter, due to Elon Musk’s mass layoffs, many twitter moderators in Brazil were unable to filter out these tweets that had incited violence. Another reason is Bolsonaro himself, because Bolsonaro never officially conceded defeat to Lula da Silva, and he fled to Florida after the election results were released. Though he did claim he would follow the constitution in the handover of power, he repeatedly claimed that the electoral process was rather fraudulent and casted doubts on the legitimacy of the elections. Seeing these two reasons, do we not see certain parallels to an incident that had recently occurred?
You guessed it. The riots that occurred in capitol hill in the United States (US), incited by Trump looks very similar to this. While Bolsonaro came out on social media to denounce these actions, he cannot deny that his words and actions sparked some of these sentiments by his supporters. If Bolsonaro had conceded defeat from the start, and not cast doubt on the electoral process, maybe his supporters would have had a different view towards the elections. Evidently, because of Bolsonaro’s status, his words and actions matter greatly, and can extensively influence people. As such, it is no surprise that Bolsonaro’s supporters have acted in this manner.
Apart from that, a more immediate reason would be Bolsonaro’s supporters camping outside military bases. Some referred to them as terrorists, as a man was arrested for almost setting a bomb in protest against the election results. Many of them had called for an armed forces coup, similar to that of the previous military coup in Brazil in 1964. Also, on December 12, Bolsonaro’s supporters had attempted to charge the headquarters of the federal police. However, many security forces did not see this as much of a threat, so these camps were not cleared forcefully. Had these camps been cleared earlier, the riots may not even have occurred. As such, the riots were also a build up of the recent incidents. Overall, many factors influenced the riots, with the main one being Bolsonaro’s refusal to concede defeat in the elections.
Now, as for the impacts, the cultural impacts of the riots have been quite significant. Many important artistic works were stored in the 3 buildings that were attacked. Director of Curatorship, Rógerio Carvalho mentioned that the artworks represented all those who had led Brazil before as President, which has immense value to Brazil’s national history. Many other sculptures, paintings were destroyed in the process, inflicting great harm to Brazil’s heritage and culture.
In the short term, there were also some economic impacts, as the Brazilian real, a currency that had already weakened, weakened further against the US dollar. Simultaneously, some analysts expect market confidence in Brazil to drop, as there might be greater volatility in Brazil’s economy. Nonetheless, more analysts believe that these effects will wear off soon, and its impact might not be persistent in the long term.
As for the political impacts, certainly, it does weaken Brazilian democracy, and it proves that Bolsonaro's supporters will continue to haunt Brazil’s democracy. Despite the crackdown, Lula’s narrow victory does prove that there are many supporters of Bolsonaro still present that would threaten Lula’s rule. However, looking at what transpired in the US, the riots might instead bring benefits to Lula da Silva. In the US, the riots in capitol hill led to Trump’s Republican party becoming less popular as they did badly in the Midterm elections last year. At the same time, not all Bolsonaro supporters condone such behaviour, as those interviewed by news agencies like BBC have also condemned these acts of violence. As such, the political impacts of the riots may not be all bad, and it might instead work to Lula da Silva’s advantage.
In conclusion, there were many causes for the riots, but ultimately, Bolsonaro’s refusal to accept the results and his undermining of the legitimacy of the electoral system played one of the most important roles in the riots. As for the impacts, certainly the cultural impacts to Brazil are rather irreversible. As for the economic impacts of the riots, they are expected to be negative but it might recover quickly. Finally, for the political impacts, it could have both positive and negative effects on Brazil and Lula da Silva.
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