Brazil capital reels after anti-Lula rioters storm congress

Brazil’s capital was recovering Monday from an insurrection by thousands of supporters of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed the country’s top government institutions, leaving a trail of destruction and testing the leadership of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva just a week after he took office.

Rioters ransacked the National Congress, presidential palace and top court in Brasilia on Sunday, hoping to trigger a military intervention. It took hours for security forces to regain control of the main government buildings.

Hundreds of arrests were carried out through the night, but thousands of Bolsonaro supporters remained in the area.

Lula, who was visiting a city destroyed by rains in the state of Sao Paulo, returned late to the capital and decreed federal intervention in Brasilia’s security. In a show of strength, he’s likely to meet with the heads of Congress and the top court, as well as state governors who are expected to fly into Brasilia.

While the scenes of protesters flooding into the country’s main government buildings have obvious parallels with the Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol two years ago, there were suggestions of complicity in Brasilia.

Gleisi Hoffmann, the president of the ruling Workers’ Party, criticized the authorities in the capital for not preventing the civil unrest. Lula said police who failed to confront protesters would be prosecuted.

“There’s no precedent for this in the history of our country,” the president said in televised comments, vowing to prosecute the rioters. “We’re going to find out who the financial backers are.”

In the early hours of Monday, top court Justice Alexandre de Moraes criticized the “despicable terrorist attacks on democracy” and ordered Federal District Governor Ibaneis Rocha removed from office for 90 days while his responsibility in the security breach is investigated.