These elements illegally and violently occupied the headquarters of the National Congress, the Supreme Court and other headquarters of the National Government calling for a Coup d’état against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who assumed the popular mandate a week ago, it stressed.

“This script, modeled on the one followed by (Donald) Trump and his followers in the United States, is a serious attack on democracy and its institutions. It tries to delegitimize the popular verdict expressed at the polls and which gave President Lula victory, and seeks to pierce the legitimate democratic institutions,” said the group.

The Puebla Group alerted citizens, democratic political forces, the media, and international institutions about the serious risk that threatens continental democracies today.

“In times of crisis, fascist and populist ideas find fertilizer, and we must be vigilant,” the statement said.

We have already seen what happened in Brazil, in the United States, and we also alerted how it is beginning to be articulated in other countries in the region,” emphasized the group made up of former presidents Ernesto Samper, Rafael Correa, Leonel Fernández, Martín Torrijos, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and other figures.

Said personalities called on the international community to demonstrate with firmness and unity “our total adherence to the government democratically elected by the Brazilians headed by President Lula da Silva.”

ef/rgh/otf