What Led Up to the Attack on Brazil’s Government?
BloombergThousands of supporters of Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro stormed congress, the presidential palace and the top court in Brasilia on Sunday, in what some saw as an attempt to trigger a military coup. Many Bolsonaro supporters have been pleading with the military to step in ever since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a tightly contested runoff election on Oct. 30. It was the worst attack on Brazil’s key institutions since the end of a military dictatorship and return to democracy in the 1980s and came after a bitter campaign that underscored the country’s deep divisions. Bolsonaro, 67, is a former army captain who was stabbed while on the campaign trail in 2018 and has been hospitalized several times as a result of that attack.