(Reuters) – Former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is due to leave for Brazil on Wednesday after nearly three months of self-exile in the United States, said he is not returning to the country to “lead the opposition”.
Bolsonaro, who left Brazil on the eve of the end of his term, returns to the country making it clear that at the moment he has no mandate and, therefore, no privileged forum. Even so, he promised, in an interview with CNN Brasil, that he intends to make at least two trips a month across the country, with an eye on the 2024 municipal elections.
“Some things are turning pages for us”, he told CNN Brasil, referring to the 2022 electoral dispute. “And we will, yes, prepare for next year’s elections. I intend to tour Brazil,” she added.
“I say: I will not lead any opposition. I will participate with my party as an experienced person.”
Bolsonaro also said that he will support the parliamentary group of his party, the PL, criticized the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated him at the polls, and defended the installation of a Joint Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPMI) on the acts anti-democratic attacks perpetrated by his supporters, which resulted in the destruction of the buildings of the Planalto Palace, the National Congress and the Federal Supreme Court (STF).
Images from CNN Brasil showed the former president in the departure area of the airport in Orlando, Florida, talking and taking pictures with supporters. Bolsonaro even reaffirmed his criticism of Venezuela in one of his speeches. Bolsonaro had already rehearsed other returns to the country.
Representatives of the public security forces of the Federal District and the federal government prepared a special scheme for Bolsonaro’s arrival on Thursday morning in Brasília. The intention of the security forces is to avoid agglomeration, turmoil and traffic congestion and in addition to trying to prevent even problems in the air network.
The president arrives in the country in the midst of a determination by the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) to deliver to the government a third set of jewels received as a gift from Saudi Arabia. The court also warned that last week’s decision already required the presentation of all items offered by the Saudis.
At the airport, the president denied irregularities in receiving the gifts, saying that the reports that denounced the case were only possible because there was a record of this receipt — “nothing was hidden”. He also said that he will follow the advice of his lawyer in the process.
Bolsonaro, who admitted that he was reluctant to hand over to the Federal Police weapons also received as gifts, said that the third batch of jewels must be delivered to the public authorities by Friday.
The Planalto Palace intends to ignore Bolsonaro’s return to Brazil, and instructed its members not to make comments or change any schedule because of the former president’s presence in Brasília.
(Reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello; Writing by Maria Carolina Marcello)
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