MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Jair Bolsonaro: “it never crossed our mind” to stage a coup d'état

Bolsonaro had announced over the weekend that he would return to Brazil on Thursday

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stated that he “never” considered staging a coup. The former president is currently being investigated by the Brazilian Supreme Court for “inciting” his followers to violently invade the headquarters of the three branches of government on January 8th.

“If I wanted to stage a coup, I would have done it while I was president, but it never crossed our minds,” said the right-wing leader in an interview with Jovem Pan from the United States, ahead of his return to Brazil.

Bolsonaro had announced over the weekend that he would return to Brazil on Thursday, March 30th, after living in Orlando, Florida, United States, since December 30th, 2022, two days before his opponent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva assumed office as president of Brazil.

”I'm going to work in the Liberal Party (...) travel around Brazil and do politics,“ said Bolsonaro in an interview with Record TV in Florida, published early Thursday morning.

”Keeping the banner of conservatism alive” in Brazil is the mission that the right-wing leader has set for himself.

Meanwhile, his political force, the Liberal Party (PL), announced on Friday on social media that the former president will land in Brasilia on the 30th at 7:30am (same time in Uruguay).

In his statements on Monday, the former president rejected the criticisms of the left that accuse him of being “problematic,” “uneducated,” “using foul language,” and of being a “dictator for wanting to stage a coup.”

The Brazilian Supreme Court included the retired army captain on the list of those being investigated for the attempted coup carried out by thousands of his most radical supporters on January 8th in Brasilia.

That day, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters invaded and vandalized the headquarters of Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court, in an attempt to force the ousting of the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in the October 2022 elections.

During the investigations, authorities found a draft of a coup decree in the home of Bolsonaro's former Justice Minister, Anderson Torres, who is still detained for his alleged “omission” in the episode as Brasilia's Security Secretary.

The unsigned text would have allowed for the intervention of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and the annulment of the election results.

On several occasions, Lula has publicly accused the former head of state of being behind everything and “preparing” a coup against him.

At another point in the interview, Bolsonaro confirmed that he would return to Brazil on Thursday and hinted that he would oppose Lula's government.

”I am without a mandate, but I am not retired. I am going to meet with the Party (Liberal, PL) and we will see what our strategy is. Not for the party, but for the country, how we can present ourselves better for Brazil,“ he said, although he guaranteed that he had no ”ambition for power.“

The former leader once again used the situation in Venezuela to attack left-wing governments and warned that ”freedom and the economic future“ of the country were at stake with Lula in power.

”The left is not going in the right direction (...) We are entering a hole from which it may be difficult to emerge,“ he warned, in addition to criticizing the supposed ”indoctrination in schools” during the administrations of the Workers' Party (PT) of Lula.

 

Source: AFP and EFE