Ex-President Bolsonaro Stays In Florida, No Return To Brazil Yet

Michelle Bolsonaro, wife of the former Brazilian president, landed Thursday night in Brasilia without her husband, who remains in a borrowed villa in Florida on the eve of a month after he left and ended his term. Right-wing extremist Jair Bolsonaro is silent on his future and has not given a return date. Meanwhile, the investigation that the Supreme Court opened against him for promoting the January 8 attack on the political and legal heart of Brazil has produced no relevant news. The number of arrests for the attempted coup continues and more than 1,000 people remain in prison. Among the suspects the police are looking for is a Bolsonaro nephew known as Leo, El indio, who participated in the attack and took a selfie right there.

Bolsonaro, who originally arrived with the intention of staying in Florida for a month, has not publicly explained his plans at this time. In the midst of much speculation and anonymous sources that assure that he asked his host to stay until after Carnival, his eldest son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, has been submerged in uncertainty: “There is no forecast, he is the one who White does. It may be tomorrow, in six months, he may never come back. I don’t know,” he said Saturday.

Head of The Bolsonaro Patriarch’s Party

The head of the Bolsonaro patriarch’s party, Valdemar Costa Neto, instead hopes for an immediate return. “The other day he sent me an audio saying that he returns at the end of the month (January),” said the president of the Liberal Party in an interview with the newspaper this Friday. or balloon. Brazilian commentators didn’t quite buy it. And the leader of the acronym that Bolsonaro joined to contest the re-election admits that he speaks little to him. Costa Neto believes it is essential that he appear in Brazil to lead the opposition to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leftist leader of a coalition government.

The former president’s intestinal problems are one of the reasons that could accelerate his return, since he suffered a new crisis that forced him to travel to the United States to be hospitalized.

This Monday a month has passed since Bolsonaro established his residence in the city of Kissimmee, Florida, two days before he ended his term on January 1. He then lost the immunity the reserve soldier enjoyed for three decades thanks to successive elective offices. He is still on American soil, living the life of a commoner. He was seen with his wife at a burger joint and at the supermarket. A little more. First, he stopped to chat with fans outside the house where he lives, owned by a former professional wrestler from Brazil.

He has said little publicly in recent weeks. After thousands of his supporters violently invaded the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court in Brasilia, he timidly denounced: “Peaceful demonstrations are part of democracy by law. However, the looting and invasion of public buildings such as those that occurred today (for January 8), as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, are out of the norm.” A video questioning Lula’s victory and later posted on his networks about the attempted coup is the main reason why Bolsonaro was included in the investigation for instigating the coup attack. He has defended himself arguing that he has always acted “within the four lines of the Constitution.”

Three months after a defeat he never explicitly admitted, it is clear that Bolsonaro has relinquished his role as opposition leader, despite huge gains in political capital in the election he lost by less than two points. The violent attack by thousands of his supporters, whom he encouraged to believe his elections had been stolen, has further complicated his future. He is being investigated in a handful of cases, including some due to the pandemic.

One of the three sons he has in politics, Carlos, is also in the US, according to the Brazilian press. He is being investigated for operating Bolsonaro’s disinformation machine. He awaits his position as a councilor for the city of Rio de Janeiro. His brothers will take their seats in Brasilia next Wednesday, Flavio as senator and Eduardo as deputy. The election of the presidents of the two chambers will give us an idea of the balance of power between Lula and Bolsonaro in Congress.

There is no news that the Brazilian far-right has had a regular presence in Florida in recent weeks with former President Donald Trump. Nor did he manage to meet with the Brazilian allies who passed through Florida to take advantage of the New Year holidays.

One of them, his former attorney general Anderson Torres, was arrested six days after the attack on those in power at the Brasilia landing stage. Torres, who was in charge of public security in Brasilia, was in Florida the day the buildings were invaded. Bolsonaro’s former minister, accused of “premeditated collusion” with the attackers, left his cell phone in the United States and has not spoken since he was arrested.

Police found at Torres’ house a draft presidential decree to intervene in the Supreme Court after the elections and reverse the October result. Costa Neto, leader of his party, said in the interview that there were proposals for coup decrees “in everyone’s house.” He says he received suggestions himself: “I made sure to squash them. I saw that the conditions were not met and Bolsonaro did not want to do anything outside the law.

The right-wing extremist went abroad to avoid attending Lula’s handover ceremony. He flew on an Air Force plane as head of state, but has been a commoner since January 1. Among other things, he must clarify his immigration status with the US authorities. Those who want to see it in person can pay between $10 and $50 to be eligible to attend an event in Orlando on Tuesday. Great meeting with the captain. that he organized a group of fans.

This article is originally published on notasdeprensa.org