Thousands of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the country's government buildings on Sunday, including the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential palace. Many of the rioters called for military intervention to remove Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who took power a week ago in one of Brazil's closest elections on record. Windows were smashed, art works were destroyed, and computers and desks were overturned, leaving the monumental buildings' interiors in a state of ruin.
Snapshot: The attack is reminiscent of the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with some notable differences. In the leadup to the riots, both former President Trump and Bolsonaro cast doubt on the validity of election voting systems and refused to say they would unconditionally accept the results. However, while January 6th was intended to block President Biden's certification and happened while Congress was in session, no one was in any of the government buildings in Brazil's capital at the time of the attack, and Lula wasn't even in Brasilia.
Riot police began to restore order within hours, arresting about 300 people, but questions remain to how public security forces in the capital were so unprepared (rioters announced their plans for weeks on social media). Brasilia's head of public security, Anderson Torres, has since been fired, while da Silva decreed a state of federal intervention in the city. "Peaceful demonstrations, in the form of the law, are part of democracy," Bolsonaro tweeted from Florida in response to the attack. "However, depredations and invasions of public buildings as occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, escape the rule."
To invest? Brazil, Russia, India and China, collectively known as the BRIC nations, were all the rage in the early 2000s, when emerging market investors hoped to capitalize on their growth and population expectations, as well as their sources of raw materials. Barring China (and possibly India), things haven't quite materialized, and Lula will have to go a long way to deal with a politically divided nation and a weakening economic outlook. The recent commodities boom could benefit the nation, and Lula even leveraged the supercycle in his first two terms to finance social welfare programs and reforms, while driving Brazil's GDP to the highest in its history.
ETFs: NYSEARCA: EWZ , NYSEARCA: BRF , NYSEARCA: BRZU , NASDAQ: EWZS , NYSEARCA: BZQ , NYSEARCA: UBR , NASDAQ: FBZ
For further details see:
Pro-Bolsonaro rioters storm government buildings in Brazil's capital