Brazil woke up to thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsanaro storming some of the important chambers of the government on Sunday to overthrow the government. The riots came just a week after Brazilian President Lula De Silva was inaugurated. He had earlier served as president for 12 years.

The riots by the Bolsonaro-supporters have been widely condemned within Brazil and internationally but bear a stark resemblance to the January 6 Capitol Hill riots that happened almost exactly two years ago. The January 6 riots saw supporters of President Donald J Trump storm Capitol Hill in order to overthrow the government.

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Much like the January 6 riots, the Brazilian rioters believed that the recently held presidential election was “stolen”. Again, much like in the US, most of the doubt on the integrity of the elections was cast by former President Jair Bolsanaro himself. Often called a Trump clone, Bolsonaro and his camp had repeatedly said in the lead-up to the 2022 Brazilian Presidential Elections that if he lost the election it would be due to electoral fraud.

Bolsanaro also encouraged his supporters to engage in “necessary countercoup” protests. Predictably, as soon as Bolsanaro lost the election, his supporters called for a military coup to restore Bolsonaro to power. Camps of Bolsonaro supporters were set up in major cities in front of military and police barracks. The police presence around the Praça dos Três Poderes central plaza was seen as a complicit force by not immediately dispersing the attacking crowd.

However, despite attacking the Supreme Court of Brazil, the National Congress of Brazil and the Planalto Presidential Palace, rioters were not able to cause any harm as no one was present in those buildings at the time. This was a starkly different scenario from the January 6 riots when both the bodies of the US Congress were in session, with nearly every federal lawmaker in the country present.

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Another crucial difference has been the response after the attacks. While President Silva along with Brazil’s Supreme Court and opposition lawmakers have promised swift action against rioters, with thousands arrested already, action against the rioters has been slow in the US.

(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)