The burbling political tension in Brazil finally boiled over as supporters of former rightwing President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the country's government buildings in an all-too-familiar scene this weekend. Here's everything you need to know:
Pressure has been mounting in Brazil ever since Bolsonaro lost his re-election bid to challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, in October 2022. While Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist, eventually came to accept his defeat, he made false claims of widespread voter fraud in the months leading up to Lula's Jan. 1, 2023 inauguration.
The allegations were not a new occurrence. Bolsonaro, who came into office in 2019, had spent years spreading misinformation about Brazil's election process, including allegations of fraud and claims that hackers had tried to steal the election from him, The New York Times reports. "Those claims are false, according to Brazil's election officials, fact-checking agencies, and independent election-security experts who have studied the country's electronic voting system," the Times noted. "Yet in speeches, interviews, and hundreds of posts on social media, the president has consistently and methodically repeated those baseless claims and many others about Brazil's voting system."
Fueled on by Bolsonaro's claims, the outgoing president's supporters have been protesting since his loss, continuing after Lula was inaugurated at the beginning of 2023. Even after...
Judge found FBI affidavit flawed but not enough to return ballots Probe part of Trump administration effort to reexamine 2020 loss Fulton County argued FBI relied on discredited evidence WASHING...