“Trump is back, and that’s a sign that we’re coming back,” Brazil’s former president told the Journal amid the alleged coup attempt.
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has announced that US President-elect Donald Trump will return to the White House in January, marking his political comeback amid widespread accusations that he took part in an attempted coup in the South American country. He expressed his hope that it would help boost the
The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday that President Bolsonaro asked Trump to delay enforcement of a court ruling barring him from holding office until 2030, accusing him of baselessly attacking the country’s voting system ahead of the 2022 election he lost. It reported that the president expects to pressure Brazil with sanctions.
“Trump is back, and this is a sign that we are coming back,” Bolsonaro said in an interview with a US newspaper.
Bolsonaro’s comments come amid reports by Brazilian police that he is linked to a criminal organization aimed at overturning the 2022 election he lost to left-wing rival President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. This took place a few days after the publication of the book.
The report said Bolsonaro “planned, acted on, and was directly and effectively aware of the actions of criminal organizations aimed at staging a coup and eliminating the democratic rule of law.” Ta.
The former army colonel, who served as president from 2019 to 2022, has denied any wrongdoing and insisted he was the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt.
Despite the coup allegations and other investigations against him, Trump’s election victory in the United States earlier this month injected new energy into Brazil’s far right, raising concerns that Bolsonaro could reflect a return to power. It stirred up expectations.
Bolsonaro often expressed admiration for Trump during his first Republican administration from 2017 to 2021, and was widely referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics” during his own presidency.
Like President Trump, who continues to say the 2020 election he lost to President Joe Biden was stolen from him, Bolsonaro has spent months preparing for Brazil’s 2022 vote, arguing that the country’s voting system is falsely claimed to be vulnerable to fraud;
Immediately after Bolsonaro’s leftist challenger, Lula, took office in January 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters enraged by the election results stormed the presidential palace, Congress, and Supreme Court in the capital Brasilia.
The attack has been compared to the U.S. insurrection two years ago, on January 6, 2021, when a group of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory. It became.
Guilherme Casaroes, a professor at the São Paulo School of Management at Fundacao Getulio Vargas, said this week that Brazilian conservatives believe that “[President Trump]is using the threat of sanctions and other punitive measures to pressure Brazilian authorities into pushing back against Bolsonaro’s candidacy.” I hope it will be allowed.” President in 2026.
“Even if the threat of US sanctions does not in itself change Brazil’s judicial outcome, the chorus of global sympathy for Bolsonaro may actually help him politically in Brazil, reducing feelings of discontent and his return. “It may fuel the nation’s desire to do so,” Casaroes wrote in Americas Quarterly.
