Liberal Party in Brazil confirms Jair Bolsonaro’s membership as of November 22

RIO  DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Liberal Party (PL) has just confirmed in a statement that President Jair Bolsonaro’s affiliation is approved for the 22nd of this month. The event will take place in Brasilia, in a location still to be defined.

Earlier in the day, Bolsonaro met with the president of PL, Valdemar Costa Neto, at the Presidential Palace to discuss the last details of his affiliation. Before the meeting, in an interview with a radio station in Espírito Santo, the Chief Executive had already advised  that he was “99.9%” closed with the party.

Two days ago, President Jair Bolsonaro said that he is ready to join Brazil’s Liberal Party to run for re-election in 2022.

The Brazilian leader has been without a party since November 2019, when he resigned from the Social Liberal Party after a bitter feud with several of its leaders. He then tried and failed to launch a new political group controlled by him, dubbed Alliance for Brazil, and has since relied on a coalition of centrist lawmakers to support his plan in congress.

Valdemar Costa Neto, the president of the Liberal Party, said he’s discussing with Bolsonaro when to hold his affiliation ceremony.

LIBERAL PARTY

The Brazilian Liberal Party is a centrist group and one of the largest in the government coalition.

It was founded on December 21, 2006, by the merger of the Evangelical-influenced Liberal Party (Partido Liberal, PL) and the right Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order (Partido da Reedificação da Ordem Nacional, PRONA).

At the 2010 elections, the party focused on the parliamentary elections; it won 41 of the 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 4 of the 81 Senate seats.

Sergio Victor Tamer, the party’s founder, was president from 2006-2014. Alfredo Nascimento succeeded Tamer as president of the PR until April 2016, when he resigned due to party leadership not supporting the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff. However, 26 of the PR’s MPs did vote for her impeachment.

On May 7, 2019, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) voted to approve a motion of the party to change its name back to Liberal Party (PL).