Jair Bolsonaro has been defeated this Sunday, but he still has two months to pack his bags and leave the Palacio da Alvorada. Until the inauguration of the next president on January 1, a transition is opening that is expected to be tumultuous due to the poor relationship between the candidates and the constant accusations of the far-right against the electoral system. Bolsonaro has not even spoken tonight to admit defeat. Even out of power, his influence on the Brazilian right is indisputable.
As tradition marks, the new president will take office on the first day of 2023 in a solemn ceremony in Brasilia. In principle, that day Bolsonaro should give him the presidential sash greenyellow to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a gesture of democratic normality. “If that were the will of God, I continue [en la Presidencia]. If it isn’t, I’ll pass the belt and go pick myself up, because at my age there’s nothing left for me to do here on Earth,” he said in September, during an interview with Globo.
However, the president has on several occasions made the recognition of the defeat conditional on the “cleanliness and transparency” of the elections, which calls into question the possibility of a smooth transition. Brazilian law establishes that the transition team appointed by the winner of the elections “will have access” to information on public accounts and federal government projects. Even so, during the two months that remain until his inauguration, Bolsonaro retains his powers.
Meanwhile, an outgoing Congress is unlikely to pass major reforms. Among the pending issues that the legislature started after the first round of the elections, there is a bill that criminalizes polling companies with up to 10 years in prison if they fail in their predictions, a measure supported by Bolsonarism. It remains to be seen whether there is still an appetite for such reform with a new government just around the corner.
Bolsonaro’s political future as of January 1 is unknown. He says that he wants to “pick himself up”. With his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, he has a 12-year-old daughter. It is likely that they will choose to return to Rio de Janeiro. There, the president has a house in Barra de Tijuca, a new and wealthy neighborhood facing the sea that voted overwhelmingly for him in these elections. Rio de Janeiro is the city where he began his political career as a councilman and later represented as a federal deputy in Brasilia for almost three decades. Although the mayor is on the left, the state governor, Cláudio Castro, is an ally of the extreme right.
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As quiet as his retirement may be, Bolsonaro will retain great influence on the Brazilian right. Two sons from his first marriage, Eduardo and Flávio Bolsonaro, are deputy and senator, respectively. A third son, Carlos, is a councilor for Rio de Janeiro. In addition, several of the most important states in the country will be governed by allies of the ultra and the Liberal Party of which he is a member has the largest bench in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies. Powerful tentacles for a “retired” politician.
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