Lula says he suspects pro-Bolsonaro employees of helping a gang enter the presidential palace | Brazil

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Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he suspected hardline supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro among presidential staff had facilitated the insurrectionists who stormed his presidential palace seeking to overthrow the Brazilian government.

Speaking to a group of political journalists at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia – one of the three buildings destroyed by the pro-Bolsonaro mob last Sunday – Lula pledged a “thorough check” of staff in the aftermath of the historic attack.

“I’m waiting for the dust to settle. I want to see both [security] “The tapes that were recorded inside the Supreme Court, the Congress and the Planalto presidential palace,” Lula said Thursday morning.

“[But] Many people were complicit in this… Many military police were complicit. There were a lot of people in the armed forces here inside [the palace] who were complicit,” the left-wing veteran added, as a bodyguard with a flexible, bulletproof barrier lounged behind him.

“We are doing a thorough examination [of our staff] Because the truth is that [presidential] The palace was full of bolsonarians and military officials and we want to try to rectify that so we can hire professional civil servants – preferably civilians… So this is because of a civilized administration.”

“Anyone suspected of being a militant Bolsonarista cannot be allowed to stay in the palace.”

“How could I have someone at my office door who might shoot me?” Referring to media reports, Lula added that he had read about military officials vowing to assassinate him.

Bolsonaro supporters outside the National Congress on Sunday. Photograph: Adriano Machado/Reuters

The ease with which Brazil’s former far-right leader’s thousands of die-hard supporters rammed through the country’s most important democratic institutions has shocked the nation and the world and sparked a deep soul-searching among members of Lula’s 12-day-old government.

“I feel very, very angry about what happened,” Lula told reporters over breakfast at the mansion he once occupied between 2003 and 2010.

“I am satisfied that the door to Planalto Palace was opened so that these people could enter because I did not see the front door broken. That means someone facilitated their entry here.

The President of Brazil added, “What happened was an alert, a big alarm, and we must be more careful. We need to understand that we won the elections and defeated Bolsonaro but Bolsonarismo is still there. The bigoted Bolsonrismo is very difficult because he has no respect for anyone.”

Fears of a new round of pro-Bolsonaro protests came to nothing on Wednesday evening, after a heavy deployment of security forces around the palace, Congress and the Supreme Court.

“We have to be careful but not afraid,” Lula said, about the possibility of future episodes of violence.

More details to follow…

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