Former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL, right) said he should return to Brazil in March to lead the opposition to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT, progressive-globalist).
The statement was made in an interview with the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal published on Tuesday (Feb. 14). Bolsonaro has been in the United States since Dec. 30.
The former president said that “an arrest warrant can come out of nowhere” when he returned to the country and cited as an example the arrest of former president Michel Temer (MDB), in 2019, three months after leaving the Planalto.
He said he intends to be the leader of the right in Brazil. “The right-wing movement is not dead,” he stressed.
Bolsonaro acknowledged defeat in the 2022 elections and said losing “is part of the electoral process.”
The former president also spoke about the electoral process. “I’m not saying there was fraud, but the process was skewed,” he stated.
During the interview, he denied any responsibility for the acts of vandalism on Jan. 8. For Bolsonaro, the invasion, and depredation of the headquarters of the three Branches of Power was not an attempt at a coup d’état.
“Coup? What coup? Where was the principal? Where were the troops? Where were the bombs?” he questioned.
Asked if he would do anything differently in managing the Covid-19 pandemic, the former president said, “I wouldn’t say anything; I would leave the problem to the Ministry of Health.”
He recalled when he linked the application of vaccines against the disease to “turning alligator.”
“It was just a figure of speech, and I got hammered for it,” he pointed out.
During the campaign, Bolsonaro said he regretted statements made when commenting on the pandemic.