They say that Brazil comes to a halt on three occasions: Carnival, the World Cup and elections. It is no surprise therefore that the combined weight of these events in 2022 made for an unusual start to the year that followed.
A fraught election in October 2022 saw Workers’ Party leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva return to the presidency 13 years after he left office, ousting former president Jair Bolsonaro. Decided by the narrowest margin in decades, Lula’s inauguration was marred by an attempted insurrection when a sea of yellow and green-clad bolsonaristas stormed federal government buildings in Brasília.
