By Anthony Boadle
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s Congress on Wednesday prepared to open an inquiry into the Jan. 8 storming of key government buildings in the capital by violent demonstrators who denied the electoral victory of the recently inaugurated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Lula and his allies in parliament have tried to avoid the congressional inquiry, hoping to leave investigations to law enforcement and keep lawmakers’ focus on his legislative agenda. The right-wing opposition has pushed for an inquiry as a way to blame his new government for security failures in Brasilia that day.
The government fears the inquiry will be a political side-show, firing up supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro and distracting from Lula’s proposed tax reform and budget rules meant to keep a lid on public debt and boost social programs to address inequality, government allies said.
Once the congressional inquiry is formally opened, there will be a fierce battle over the committee’s composition.
The opposition, which has a strong position in Congress, plans to stack the 36-member committee with enough lawmakers to run hearings, leaving the minority Lula government on the defensive, according to the right-wing Liberal Party (PL).
“We want to chair the committee. Our party wants to know why the government did not deploy police on the streets,” said a spokesman for the PL, Bolsonaro’s party and the largest in Congress.
The representatives proposed by the PL include the former president’s son Eduardo Bolsonaro, his former intelligence chief Alexandre Ramagem and Andre Fernandes, who is being investigated by the Supreme Court for supporting the Jan. 8 storming.
The demonstrations are being investigated by the top court, public prosecutors and the federal police in probes that may carry more serious consequences for Bolsonaro and his supporters, 800 of whom face charges for vandalism and defending a military coup.
Bolsonaro, who has denied any responsibility for the storming as he was not in Brazil at the time, was called to testify at federal police headquarters on Wednesday morning.
His spokesman Fabio Wajngarten told reporters that the former president condemned the events in his police hearing.
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle and Ricardo Brito; Editing by Brad Haynes and Aurora Ellis)
