Bolsonaro announces return to Brazil National Council committee wants unbureaucratic admission of earthquake victims

Brazil’s right-wing ex-president Jair Bolsonaro is set to return home in March to lead the opposition to his left-wing successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. “The right-wing movement is not dead and will live on,” the 67-year-old said in an interview published Tuesday (local time) with the Wall Street Journal.

Bolsonaro has denied allegations he had anything to do with the January riots in Brazil’s capital Brasília. “I wasn’t even there and they want to blame me,” said the ex-president. Nor was it an attempted coup: “A coup? Which coup? Where was the leader? Where were the troops, where were the bombs?”

Bolsonaro lost to Lula in October in the presidential runoff. On January 8, supporters of the ex-president, unwilling to recognize Lula’s electoral victory, stormed the Congress, the seat of government and the Supreme Court in Brasília, causing significant damage. The Supreme Court is investigating, among other things, the “intellectual authorship” and the role of Bolsonaro.

On the outcome of Brazil’s elections, Bolsonaro said: “Losing is part of the electoral process. I’m not saying there was fraud, but the process was biased.” He doesn’t yet know if he will run for president again, Bolsonaro continued. The role was “much more difficult” than he expected.

He flew to the United States with his family two days before the end of his term on New Year’s Day and has been in Florida ever since. According to media reports, Bolsonaro has applied for a six-month tourist visa in the United States.

(tononline/dpa)