Fury and shock after Bolsonaro rioters' orgy of violence

Carla Coutinho da Rosa rode her mud-caked bicycle to Brazil’s day of chaos, joining thousands of far-right militants as they marched on congress with a clear objective in their minds.

- Tom Phillips

“The idea was to get rid of Lula,” the 60-year-old businesswoman said of Brazil’s democratically elected president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated her preferred candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, in October’s election.

Like millions of devoted Bolsonaristas, Rosa rejects the outcome of that vote and after lunch last Sunday she took to the streets of the capital, Brasília, joining a mass protest that she said aimed to overturn the result.

“He’s a corrupt thief,” Rosa fumed of the veteran leftist, claiming marchers had planned a peaceful demonstration as they made the 8km hike from their encampment outside Brasília’s army headquarters to the nerve centre of Brazilian politics.

What happened was anything but peaceful.

Journalist George Marques, who reached the area outside Oscar Niemeyer’s spectacular congress building at about 3pm on Sunday after disguising himself as a Bolsonaro supporter, said he saw thousands of people storm the complex.

“There were so many people… and the barricades [outside congress] had all been torn down and destroyed… the police were no longer there and the ramp leading into congress was completely overrun,” he said.

From congress, Marques, 32, followed the demonstrators as they advanced over the road to the Planalto presidential palace, where Lula had been sworn in just seven days earlier.