A few days ago I was reading the news and spotted an article about riots happening in Brazil due to the outcome of the elections. After reading the article I was reminded of the riots at the Capitol in the USA on January 6, 2021.
In October 2022, after a deeply contested election Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, won in the runoff election against his right wing populist opponent, Jair Bolsonaro. Fast-forwarding a few months to January 2023, when the former president was supposed to hand over the presidential power to Lula, Jair Bolsonaro instead booked a ticket to Orlando, Florida. During this time, rioters stormed the Supreme Court, Congress and other important government buildings. They damaged the streets and many priceless works of art surrounding and inside these areas. The president was forced to declare emergency powers.
Three years earlier, after Donald Trump lost the presidential election in the USA to Joe Biden, the former took to Twitter claiming election fraud and encouraging the riots on the Capitol. He was not willing to hand over power. The rioters stormed the Capitol and its legal ramifications are still being felt today with people being arrested two years after the riots. Trump, like Bolsonaro, is a right wing populist.
This led me to think about the similarities. Both elections were deeply contested, both former presidents claimed election fraud and both took to social media (Twitter) to get people to support their claims. The rioters claim that the government does not represent them anymore and that they are fraudulent. Even if these claims are true, riots are not the way that the people should respond. There are many other ways to get the point across. If we, humans, claim that our species has become more civilized, these recent events do not show it considering the fact these acts have been considered to be acts of terrorism. Is this just a coincidence or if violent handovers of power like these will become a new precedent and more commonplace for elections to come?