‘He cannot take power’: Bolsonaro’s seething supporters refuse to accept Brazil’s election result
You only had to go to the rallies of the two presidential candidates to understand the stark differences between the camps.
Lula’s political rallies were basically a street party with music and dancing – in contrast the Jair Bolsonaro rallies were more shouty and more serious.
Less party, more angry, if you like. And they are seething with anger right now.
Lula da Silva won the Brazilian election on Monday, beating Bolsonaro by a razor-thin margin.
It was Brazil’s most polarised election in recent memory, pitting far-right incumbent Bolsonaro against the leftist former leader.
Bolsonaro’s office may have conceded defeat, but millions of his supporters have not, and so they took to the streets of São Paulo and 70 other cities across Brazil.
The country’s green and yellow colours have been co-opted by Bolsonaro and his supporters, and those colours were everywhere – on Brazil’s national football jersey, flags, caps, and banners.
Jair Bolsonaro
The national flag waved above the crowds as they gathered outside the military’s southeastern command.
They chanted for President Bolsonaro, but they’re calling for an intervention.
Put simply, they want a military coup.
“Don’t turn our flag red!” they shouted. They despise the leftist policies of Lula da Silva and his Worker’s Party, and they want him out by any means.
Read more: Lula da Silva will face challenges in a divided country
Bolsonaro supporters are also very suspicious of the media, and journalists in general.
There have been a number of incidents in recent months of journalists being assaulted by President Bolsonaro’s more extreme fans.
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Who is Brazil’s new president?
We were stopped a number of times and asked who we were, where we were from, and which news organisation we worked for.
When we said we were from Great Britain, they visibly relaxed and were generally happy to talk.
Lula greeted the crowds alongside his wife (in red)
Among the crowds were a large number of bikers, Bolsonaro himself an avid motorcycle enthusiast.
He often led his campaign rallies on his motorbike.
Dressed head-to-toe in his Harley Davidson leathers, 64-year-old Carlos Rubino sought me out in the crowd.
Carlos Rubino
He said he wanted the world to know what was going on here.
“He cannot take power,” Carlos told me, referring to Lula.
“The people on the streets, we want the military to take over and no election.”
I asked him if he’s really sure he wants the military to get involved. He confirmed “yes”.
“Any other guy could be elected, and we don’t have any problem, but not this guy, because he is a criminal.”
Lula was sent to prison in 2018 over a corruption scandal which sidelined him from that year’s election, paving the way for then-candidate Bolsonaro’s win and four years of far-right politics. His convictions were later annulled.
‘Fighting for our rights’
Tania Valerio
Tania Valerio was at first a bit shy, but was then persuaded by her friends to talk.
And she wasn’t shy to tell me what she thought.
“We are fighting for our rights, liberty, property, and family, our family above it all. No communists, please, we must fight until we have our liberty.”
Tania, like many here, believe the election was a fraud.
“The truth will come out, and there will be liberty for us,” she said.
Haulage lorries and their drivers were the first to begin the anti-Lula protests by blocking some of the country’s roads and major highways.
Supporters of Bolsonaro blocked highways and roads after his narrow election loss
They have become a symbol of the protest movement against the election result.
They turned up today, honking their horns to huge cheers as they edged their way through the packed streets.
Many here thought Bolsonaro’s carefully worded non-concession, concession address to the nation would dampen the fervour of his supporters. It hasn’t.
“The people are coming to the streets and will still come to streets today, tomorrow, until this situation will be finished, because we don’t want this president, we don’t want this,” another supporter Lou Arouk insisted.
But keeping the momentum going, when even Bolsonaro’s strongest political allies have publicly said the game is over, will be hard for these people to achieve.
It was a close election, but they did lose.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
Read more:
Who is in Trump’s top team?
Trump’s cabinet signals tough stance on China
Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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