Insight

Moment car ploughs into roadblock as Brazil braces for more protest

Tensions are flaring in Brazil since the defeat of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. Report by ITV News US Correspondent Emma Murphy and words by DC Producer Fred Dimbleby


Multiple people, including two police officers, were injured on Wednesday after a car drove into a road blockade set up by supporters of President Bolsonaro. 

It is not clear what the motives of the driver were, who was seemingly brought to a stop by police at gunpoint. 

A 28-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

The incident follows days of tension in Brazil after Sunday's election. 

President Bolsonaro has reluctantly accepted he will have to hand over power to the vote's victor, President-elect Lula.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva embraces his wife Rosangela, after defeating incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. Credit: AP

His supporters, however, are not willing to give up on the right-wing leader they see as the rightful occupant of the Presidential Palace. 

With voters favouring Lula, Bolsonaristas are turning to the military.

In Sao Paulo, they gathered in their thousands outside an army base begging the soldiers inside to intervene to keep their man in power. 

In the haze left by President Bolsonaro's purposefully vague comments on Tuesday, his first since the result, his supporters have seen a signal to continue attempting to overturn the result. 

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro Credit: Eraldo Peres/AP

In Brazil, political views are displayed as much as in what someone is wearing as the opinions they hold.

A Lula rally is a sea of red. While Bolsonaro fans, as a result of their nationalistic adoption of the Brazilian flag, opt for a bright yellow for their uniform. 

This uniformed, desperate crowd appealed to those in military uniform for help.

They call President-elect Lula a "bandit", pointing to his now annulled conviction for corruption as a reason why he should not be returned to power. 

"We don't trust our institutions anymore...he'd (Bolsonaro) support the intervention, but he cannot say something publicly because he's afraid of going to jail", says one protestor. 

"We will not live in misery; I am doing this for the people", claims another.

Without evidence to support them, they see the election as rigged and the result as fraudulent. 

They are similar to the angry accusations of deceit that followed the 2020 US Presidential Election and culminated in the January 6th attack on the Capitol. 


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Military intervention in elections also has precedent in Brazil.

In the coup of 1964, the army removed a President and ushered in a dictatorship that would last for 21 years. 

There are few signs that history will be repeated, but the protests show just how far Bolsonaro's fans will go to avoid defeat.

Finding progress in a country so split is the challenge that accompanies Lula's victory.