Bolsonaro confirms he will remain active in Brazilian politics

Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has affirmed his intention to remain active in the country’s politics. He has maintained that Lula da Silva’s government “will not last long” in his first public event since he left for the United States.

At an event organized in Florida by the group Yes Brazil USA attended by supporters of the former president, Bolsonaro has set his sights on the 2024 municipal elections, which he has described as “very important”.

“We cannot abandon politics. Politics is part of our lives. I am 67 years old and intend to remain active in Brazilian politics,” he reiterated during his speech, as ‘Folha de S.Paulo’ reported.

In this sense, he maintained that the new government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva “will not last long”.

“You can be sure we will have news in a short time. If this government continues in the line it has shown in these first 30 days, it will not last long,” he has affirmed.

In this sense, the former president has criticized the perpetrators of the assault on the headquarters of the three powers in Brasilia.

However, he has specified that there have been injustices.

“We regret what some inconsequential people did on Jan. 8. That is not our right. It is not our people,” he has stated before, highlighting that many people have been arrested.

“That is not terrorism under our legislation. Some people have to be singled out for invasion or depredation. Each one pays for what he has done”, he reiterated.

According to one of his lawyers in an interview with the British newspaper’ Financial Times’, the former president has requested a tourist visa to stay in the United States for six more months.

“Florida will be his temporary home away from home (Brazil),” said the lawyer, Felipe Aleixandre, founder of AG Immigration.

According to Aleixandre, the former president “needs some stability, ” who has left open the possibility of Bolsonaro applying for a permanent visa.

Bolsonaro stated a few days after being admitted to a hospital on Jan. 9 for abdominal problems stemming from the stabbing he suffered in 2018 that he would bring forward his return to Brazil to be treated by his doctors.

However, he remains in Orlando, Florida.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has dismissed the commander of the Army, General Júlio César de Arruda, apparently due to his differences with the government over the fate of a colonel considered akin to former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Arruda’s replacement will be the commander of the Southeast military region, controversial general Tomás Miguel Ribeiro Paiva, according to the Brazilian newspaper ‘Estadao’.

The Army has confirmed the dismissal but has not given any specific reason.

On Friday, Arruda participated in a meeting with the Minister of Defense, José Múcio Monteiro, and the commanders of the Navy and the Air Force in which there was allegedly strong tension over the government’s intention to annul the appointment of lieutenant colonel Mauro Cesar Barbosa Cid, as commander of a battalion in Goiania.

The man known as ‘Colonel Cid’ is considered very close to Bolsonaro.

Paiva condemned the assault on the headquarters of the three branches of government last Jan. 8 in Brasília.

“We will continue to guarantee our democracy because democracy presupposes freedom and individual and public guarantees.”

“It is the regime of the people, of the alternation of power, it is the vote, it is when the people vote, and the result of the ballot boxes must be respected,” he said after the assault.

Arruda would have prevented the entry of military police into the Bolsonarista camp located for weeks in front of the Army Headquarters.

With information from LGI