Expert Panel Discusses Ongoing Political Protests in Brazil and Peru

On Feb. 9, 2023, the OU Center for the Americas, in collaboration with the Institute for Resilient Environmental and Energy Systems, the Latin America Sustainability Initiative and the Center for Brazil Studies, hosted a panel discussion for more than 125 attendees titled, “Recent Political Protests in Peru and Brazil,” that explored the history and complex factors that led to the recent political crises in the two countries.

In Jan. 2023, protestors attacked government buildings in Brazil with the intent to topple the legitimately-elected government. Angry about the presidential election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, hundreds of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the far right incumbent, broke into and defaced Brazil’s congressional building, supreme court and presidential palace.

“We need to distinguish between political protests and what we observed in Brazil on January 8th,” Fabio Costa Morais de Sa e Silva, Ph.D., co-director for the Center for Brazil Studies and assistant professor in the College of International Studies, said. “The attacks on government buildings and the institutions they represent were in fact an attempted coup d'état.”

These events were not spontaneous, however. Institutional distrust of the government and political radicalization had been building in Brazil since the mid-2010s.

“This was not an overnight development. We had the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and the arrest of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2018. This led to the election victory of Jair Bolsonaro, anger against the Brazilian Supreme Court and the systematic distrust of election integrity,” Costa said.

These events were caused, in part, because of large misinformation and disinformation campaigns that are similar to those that led to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Just like in the U.S., where we had an invasion of the Capitol based on the big lie that the elections had been defrauded, the same thing happened in Brazil,” Costa said. “Some of the operatives behind the misinformation machine that Bolsonaro operated were the same as in the U.S.”

Víctor Maqque, Ph.D., managing director for the Latin America Sustainability Initiative and affiliate professor of history in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, provided a historical perspective on the current political crisis in Peru.

“It’s been established that the current political crisis in Peru is mainly between the Native communities and popular sectors in the highlands and the conservative right-wing governing sectors,” Maqque said.

Although highland communities are perceived as radical communists and terrorists by the Peruvian elites, they have been increasingly influential in recent national elections – mainly opposing right-wing elite sectors and their candidates.

“In 2021, in opposition to right-wing elite candidates, a majority of the south and highland communities massively supported a rural candidate,” Maqque said. “These same Native communities have been flooding the streets of their towns, demanding for the current president to resign, for the Congress to be closed, for new elections to be called and a new constitution to be drawn.”

These protests led to the killing of more than 60 people, brutal police and military oppression, and the labeling of highland communities as terrorists.

“It appears as if the country is back in the 1990s when the economic powers aligned with the president, who controlled the military, the press, the judiciary, and eliminated all opposition,” Maqque said.

The current unrest in Peru was mainly triggered by the failed coup attempt by President Pedro Castillo – the candidate who won the election with the support of the highland communities.

Charlie Kenney, Ph.D., ConocoPhillips Chair in Latin American Studies and associate professor of political science in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, said, “Pedro Castillo, who had been serving for 16 months as the democratically-elected president, went on tv and announced that he was carrying out a coup in Peru.”

Castillo announced plans to establish an emergency government that would rule by decree, dissolve congress, impose a nationwide martial law and take control of the public prosecutors’ office, judiciary and constitutional court, among other things.

“When asked why he announced this, Castillo said he was restoring democracy and the rule of law, and that these actions were justified due to the evil obstructionism in the majority of Congress,” Kenney said.

Castillo’s coup failed, however, resulting in his removal from office and Dina Boluarte being sworn in as the new president.

“When people were asked if they supported Boluarte in the days after the coup attempt, 71 percent of Peruvians disagreed with her becoming president,” Kenney said. “Many people on the left saw her as a traitor. Many people on the right didn’t trust her and believed she was incapable of governing. Support for democracy seemed to be very weak, and many people began supporting non-democratic alternatives.”

Michelle Morais de Sa e Silva, Ph.D., co-director for the Center for Brazil Studies and assistant professor in the College of International Studies, provided a comparison between the shattered democracies of both Brazil and Peru.

“We cannot understand these two countries without understanding the colonial legacies that drove the social and economic inequalities they went through,” Morais said. “We also have to recognize the shared authoritarian pasts that trickle down to the micro-dynamics we see in these societies. This became clear in the Jan. 8th attacks when the police did not resist the invasion of the government buildings.”

However, the outcomes in both countries differ in the way their leaders and institutions accepted the political outcomes. Brazil chose to avoid violent confrontations, while Peru did not.

“Regardless of the destruction to congress, the presidential palace and the supreme court, there was not a single death in Brazil during the events of Jan. 8th,” Morais said.

Learn more about OU’s Center for the Americas at their website and watch the full panel discussion on YouTube.