Many people have since gathered outside the barracks, questioning the results and pleading with the armed forces to prevent Lula from taking office.
His most diehard supporters have resorted to what some authorities and incoming members of Lula’s government have called “terrorism” – an act the country has not seen since the early 1980s Growing security concerns at Inauguration Day events.
“In 2003, the ceremony was beautiful. There wasn’t this harsh, harsh climate,” said Carlos Mello, a professor of political science at the University of Insper in São Paulo, referring to the year Lula first took office. “Today, it’s an atmosphere of terror.”
Student Tanya Albuquerque was flying from São Paulo to Brasilia, and she had tears in her eyes as she heard local leftists celebrate the new arrivals at the Brasilia airport. After seeing pictures of Lula’s first inauguration, she decided to attend.
“Maybe we won’t have 300,000 people tomorrow like we did then; these are different, more divided times. But I know I won’t be happy in front of the TV,” the 23-year-old Albuquerque said Saturday.
Lula has made it his mission to heal a divided country. But he will have to do so while dealing with more challenging economic conditions than in his previous two terms, when the global commodities boom delivered a windfall for Brazil.
At the time, his government’s flagship welfare program helped tens of millions of poor people enter the middle class. Many Brazilians are traveling abroad for the first time. He leaves office with an 83% personal approval rating.
In the intervening years, Brazil’s economy has fallen into two deep recessions — first under his handpicked successor, then during the pandemic — and ordinary Brazilians have suffered.
Lula said his priority was to fight poverty and invest in education and health. He also said he would halt illegal deforestation in the Amazon. He sought support from political moderates to form a broad front and defeat Bolsonaro, then used some of them to join his cabinet.
Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at Rio de Janeiro State University, said that given the country’s political fault lines, it was highly unlikely that Lula would regain the popularity he once enjoyed, or even see his support rate rose above 50%.
In addition, Santoro said, the credibility of Lula and his Workers Party has been hit by a sprawling corruption investigation. Party officials, including Lula, were jailed until his conviction was quashed on procedural grounds. The Supreme Court then ruled that the judge presiding over the case colluded with prosecutors to secure a conviction.
Lula and his supporters insist he has been harshly criticized. Others are willing to see possible malfeasance as a means to unseat Bolsonaro and bring the country back together.
But Bolsonaro’s supporters have refused to accept the return of a man they consider a criminal to the top job. As tensions escalated, a series of events raised fears that violence could erupt on Inauguration Day.
On Dec. 12, dozens of people tried to break into a federal police building in Brasilia and set cars and buses ablaze in other parts of the city. Then on Christmas Eve, police arrested a 54-year-old man who admitted to making a bomb that was found in a fuel truck bound for Brasília’s airport.
He has been camped out with hundreds of other Bolsonaro supporters outside the army headquarters in Brasilia since Nov. 12. He told police he was ready to go to war against communism and planned attacks with people he met at protests, according to excerpts of his testimony released by local media. The next day, police found an explosive device and several bulletproof vests in a forested area on the outskirts of the Federal District.
Lula’s incoming justice minister, Flavio Dino, this week called on federal authorities to end the “anti-democratic” protests, calling them “incubators for terrorists”.
At the request of Lula’s team, the current justice minister authorized the deployment of the National Guard until January 2, the days when Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes banned people from carrying guns in Brasilia.
“It’s a result of political polarization and political extremism,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Pawan stressed that Bolsonaro, who has all but disappeared from the political arena after losing his re-election bid, has been slow to react to recent events.
“His silence is strategic: Bolsonaro needs to keep the Bolsonarismo alive,” Pavão said.
On Dec. 30, Bolsonaro finally condemned the bomb plot in a farewell speech on social media hours before flying to the United States. His absence on inauguration day will mark a break with tradition, and it is unclear who will hand Lula the presidential sash in his place at the presidential palace.
Lawyer Eduardo Coutinho will be present. He bought himself a plane ticket to Brasilia as a Christmas present.
“I wish I was there when Bolsonaro’s plane took off, that’s the only thing that makes me almost as happy as tomorrow’s event,” Coutinho, 28, said after singing Lula’s campaign song on the plane. “I don’t usually exaggerate that much, but we need to let it out and that’s what I’m here for. Brazil needs that to keep going.”
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Jeantet reported from Rio de Janeiro. Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese is from Brasilia.
