On the day of the certification of Lula’s electoral victory
Clashes broke out on Monday night in Brasilia between police and supporters of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro, who were demanding the release of an indigenous leader after he was arrested for inciting “anti-democratic” violence, an AFP photojournalist on the ground found.
Riots broke out at the headquarters of the federal police, after the arrest — on the orders of the member of the Supreme Court, Alessandr ji Morais — of Jose Acassios Serere Savanci for threats and acts of intimidation that called into question the “democratic rule of law.”
Police tried to disperse the protesters using tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets. The protesters, some armed with clubs, retaliated by throwing stones, according to the photojournalist. Buses and cars near the police facility were attacked, damaged, or set on fire.
According to Brazilian press reports, the incidents broke out when protesters tried to storm police headquarters to free the indigenous local leader, who was ordered to be held in pretrial detention for ten days.
Jose Acasio Serere Savanci is accused of organizing demonstrations of an “undemocratic nature” in the capital, especially in front of the hotel where the center-left president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is staying.
According to the attorney general’s office, Serere Sawanchi used his position — he is a leader of the Sawanchi tribe — to incite indigenous and non-indigenous people to “commit offences”, to use violence against the elected head of state and members of the federal Supreme Court.
Lula was present yesterday at the certification ceremony of his election victory, a generally formal process, as he is roughly half a month away from his inauguration on January 1, when he will begin his third term as president.
After the outgoing far-right head of state lost elections in October, his supporters blocked roads and demonstrated for days in front of barracks, demanding that the armed forces intervene and prevent Lula from returning to power. However, there was no violent diversion, as many feared before the election, considering that Mr. Bolsonaro, a big fan of Donald Trump, was in danger of attempting something similar to the invasion of the federal Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021.
But on Friday, against the backdrop of the presidential gate in the capital Brasilia, Mr Bolsonaro told supporters: “You are the ones who will decide where I go. You are the ones who will decide in which direction the armed forces will move.”
RES-EMP
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