Brasilia | Thousands of radical backers of far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro breached and vandalised Brazil’s presidential office building, congress and supreme court on Sunday (Monday AEDT) in scenes that hauntingly evoked the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of former president Donald Trump.

The attack – the most significant threat to democracy in Latin America’s largest nation since the 1964 military coup – came a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva to succeed Mr Bolsonaro. It suggested a spreading plague of far-right disrupters in Western democracies, as hardliners radicalised by incendiary political rhetoric refuse to accept election losses, cling to unfounded claims of fraud and undermine the rule of law.

Washington Post