Brazil's Lula needs to 'de-radicalise' state institutions to stay in power

When Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s elections in late October 2022, the leftist leader pledged to govern Brazil without discriminating against anyone for ideological reasons, insisting “there are not two Brazils”.

The vow came in the aftermath of what some had called arguably Brazil’s most divisive and polarising election since the country’s return to democracy.

Four months later, on January 8, Brazil’s democracy was shaken after thousands of supporters of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro invaded and ransacked the Planalto Palace (President’s office), Congress and the Supreme Federal Court in the nation’s capital, Brasilia. 

Lula then decreed a federal intervention, allowing the army to contain the thousands who bypassed security barricades - pledging to hold them accountable and investigate who had financially supported it.

On January 9, Lula held meetings with military commanders, state governors and world leaders who he said were “unanimous in defence and support of democracy in our country” while large-scale pro-democracy rallies took place across Brazil.

The Supreme Court also removed Governor of the Federal District Ibaneis Rocha from his post for three months.

On January 10, authorities also ordered the arrest of ex-Bolsonaro justice minister Anderson Torres who was the Federal District Security Secretary during the mob attack on the presidential building in Brasilia.

At least 1,500 Bolsonaro supporters were detained, though some have been released.

Experts warn Lula’s task to restore order will be challenging.

“It does not depend entirely on Lula’s government, but also state governors (many of whom are aligned to Bolsonaro), the international community, social movements, and last but not least the market forces that enabled Bolsonarism to thrive,” says Rodrigo Duque Estrada Campos, PhD researcher at The University of York and documentary filmmaker.

“But it starts with the need to de-radicalise state institutions, primarily through thorough investigation and prosecution not only of the Sunday attackers, but all of the criminal activities perpetrated by the government (pandemic mismanagement, digital militias used to spread fake news targeting political opponents, widespread corruption, interference in Police Forces, and so on,” Campos tells TRT World.

“The same needs to be applied in the security forces, which has become a haven for extremist ideologies to flourish.” 

“Longstanding allies”

Lula faces the stark reality of containing an emboldened far-right whose ideas have taken a strong foothold in Brazil.

Dr Tatiana Dourado, a researcher at Brazil’s National Institute of Science and Technology in Digital Democracy, tells TRT World, “along with more recent political crises, in recent years, radical and extremist ideas are more visible in the Brazilian political and social landscape.” 

“The far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, his allied politicians and his supporters have been insisting on voter fraud false claims in the last four years. These voter fraud false claims were mixed with several anti-left conspiracies that are used to attack public institutions and weaken the electoral process itself,” says Dourado.

“Since Bolsonaro didn’t publicly acknowledge the electoral defeat, the imagination of his radical followers – called Bolsonarists – is fuelled by the idea that there will be a way to prevent the country from having a left-wing government,” adds Dourado.

In 2018, Lula was a presidential candidate until graft charges cut short his political aspirations, as he was sent to prison and Bolsonaro won the presidency. 

In 2019, Lula was freed from jail after his convictions were overturned by the Supreme Court, ruling that judge Sergio Moro had been biased and allowing Lula to return to office.

Following Lula’s victory in October 2022, Bolsonaro supporters demonstrated nationwide, blocking roads and calling on the military to intervene.

According to Dourado, “the 2022 election in Brazil was marked not only by the circulation of fake news but by the continued triggering of a moral panic that severely impacted certain more vulnerable audiences.” 

Several local accounts suggest provocative content shared through platforms like Kwai and TikTok fuelled anger among the Bolsonaro supporters. 

“Even camped in front of Armed Forces barracks, these people (Bolsonaro supporters) are intensely connected online and are convinced by posts that reinforce their already radicalised beliefs,” Dourado says.

Following the events on January 8, Dourado sees some “similarities in terms of digital actions and strategies of direct communication to those self-called patriots and conservative opinion leaders in both countries (Brazil-US), not least because there is also close contact among them.”

Campos says Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro remain “longstanding allies”, with son and congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro forging “many connections with the US far-right and their ideologues, such as Steve Bannon, former National Security advisor to Trump.”

Campos notes some “qualitative differences” as “in the US the objective of the far-right storming of the Capitol was to prevent the formalisation of Joe Biden as President during a Congress session, while in Brazil Lula was already sworn in, Bolsonaro had fled the country, and the mob attacks aimed at all constituted powers (legislative, executive, and judiciary).”

Dourado says in recent years, Brazil has also experienced a “growth of a radical right-wing online media ecosystem that already has a significant audience, which is most common in the US. In my opinion, the growth of the Brazilian hyperpartisan media has directly impacted the formation of political opinion and the radicalisation of individuals.”

At Sunday’s press conference, Lula alleged Bolsonaro had encouraged events through social media and in previous speeches.

According to Dourado, “Anti-system, anti-politics and anti-elite ideas have always been present in Bolsonaro’s political discourse as president. This type of authoritarian populist proselytism mobilised like-minded people around values that were not part of Brazilian political culture after re-democratisation. Bolsonaro is admittedly convalescent with dictatorial and authoritarian values, which is why the role he played in encouraging the invasion of the Three Powers of Brazil is discussed.”

Campos says Bolsonaro has been able to “capitalise on a generalised sense of frustration with the political establishment and articulated these disparate voices into a viable platform,” resulting in his political movement ‘Bolsonarism’, “an ideology combining punitivism as a form of social control, Christian family moralism, and neoliberal economics.”

Bolsonarism united different sectors, such as the security forces, the arms industry, Evangelicals, Catholics and big capital, notably financial investors and agribusiness, says Campos, morphing “into a popular mass movement cross-cutting social class, race, and gender, despite being at its core an upper-class, white, and male ideology seeking to protect the dominant status quo.”

According to Campos, “given the simplicity of its message and the context of mounting inequality and insecurity in the country, Bolsonarism resonated with many living at the edge of existence in marginalised urban areas: violence and punishment are the quickest and most efficient way to fight crime and other social problems, the patriarchal family should be the only aggregator of social identity, overcoming divisions of class, race and political ideologies, and the state should not intervene in the economy to allow individual entrepreneurs and meritocracy to thrive.” 

While Brazil’s far-right has “multiple points of departure in history”, Campos argues the failure “to prosecute perpetrators of state-sponsored terrorism during the military regime (1964-1985) allowed for anti-democratic ideas (conspiracy theories about the looming threat of imaginary communism) and practices (militarisation of police forces, war on drugs) to thrive in a democratic setting.”

Campos warns Lula’s greatest challenge will be to deliver on the economic and social agendas. “This is what will determine the extent (and potential violence, therefore) of political polarisation in the country. If there is some degree of economic stability and growth that all sectors can benefit from, there will be less space for far-right activism.” 

“This is what Lula’s reconciliatory politics was about during his first two terms: moderate social gains for the poor, rivers of profit for the rich. Of course, the global economy has changed, but the ‘democratic front’ that elected him is still largely betting on this,” says Campos.