International leaders Sunday expressed their condemnation after supporters of former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro stormed the Brazilian Congress, Supreme Court and Presidential office.

President Luiz Inácio Luna de Silva commented:

Whoever did this will be found and punished. Democracy guarantees the right to free expression, but it also requires people to respect institutions. There is no precedent in the history of the country [for] what they did today. For that they must be punished.

Secretary-General of the UN António Guterres condemned the attacks, stating “[t]he will of the of the Brazilian people and the country’s institutions must be respected.” US President Joe Biden said he condemned the “assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil. Brazil’s democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined…”

Columbian President Gustavo Pedro expressed his support for President Lula de Silva, as did Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández, who stated, “[l]et us demonstrate with firmness and unity our total adherance to the Government democratically elected by the Brazilians…”

South American intergovernmental organisation Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) expressed their condemnation in a statement:

The member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples Trade Agreement express their profound and total rejection of the grave acts of violence perpetrated in the Federative Republic of Brazil against the institutionality of the country, through the irruption in the Congress of neo-fascist groups that try to ignore the legitimate government of the President Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva.

The attacks were perpetrated by Bolsonaro supporters following the October 2022 election in which President Lula de Silva’s won a slim majority of 50.9 percent. In a speech earlier this month, Lula de Silva criticised the Bolsonaro government for its mismanagement of public policy and the COVID-19 pandemic.