BRASÍLIA — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to take the helm of Brazil’s government on Sunday in an elaborate inauguration, complete with a motorcade, music festival and hundreds of thousands of supporters Households fill the central promenade of Brasília, the nation’s capital.
But one key figure will be absent: the outgoing far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Without him, there would be no ceremony on Sunday, a vital symbol of the peaceful transition of power in a country where many still remember the military dictatorship. 21 years ended in 1985.
Instead, Bolsonaro woke up on Sunday 6,000 miles away, in a rented home owned by a professional boxer, a few miles from Disney World. Facing multiple investigations from his time in office, Bolsonaro flew to Orlando on Friday night and plans to stay in Florida for at least a month.
Mr. Bolsonaro questioned the reliability of Brazil’s electoral systems For months, there was no proof, and when he lost in October, he categorically refused to give in. In a farewell speech on Friday, breaking weeks of near silence, he said he had tried to stop Mr. Lula from taking office but failed.
“Within the framework of the law, respecting the Constitution, I have sought to get out of this,” he said. Then he appeared to encourage his supporters to keep going. “We live in a democracy or we don’t,” he said. “No one wants an adventure.”
That message doesn’t seem to resonate with many supporters. Thousands of people remain camped outside the army headquarters in Brasília, as they have done since the election, many saying they believe that at the last moment on Sunday the army will prevent Mr. Lula from taking office. .
“The military will step in,” said Magno Rodrigues, 60, a former mechanic and janitor who gives daily speeches at rallies. “The army is patriotic, patriotic, in the old days the army did the same.” He was referring to the 1964 military coup that ushered in the dictatorship.
Rodrigues spent nine weeks camping outside military headquarters, sleeping in a tent on a narrow mattress with his wife. He provided a tour of the camp, which has become a small village since Mr. Bolsonaro lost the election. It has showers, laundry service, mobile phone charging stations, a hospital, 28 food stalls and even a system for going to the bathroom in the tent.
The Brazilian military allowed the protesters to stay but showed no sign of interfering with the government handover. The protests were mostly nonviolent — more prayerful than riotous — but a small group of people set cars on fire. Mr. Lula’s transitional government has suggested that the plantations will not be tolerated much longer.
How long is Mr. Rodrigues going to stay? “As long as liberate my country,” he said, wearing a leather jacket and leaning on a cane outside the portable toilet. “For the rest of my life if I have to.”
Elsewhere in Brasília, it’s a party. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the sprawling, planned capital, established in 1960 to house the Brazilian government, many dressed in the scarlet color of Mr. Lula’s left-wing Workers’ Party.
Passengers on arriving planes joined in rallying songs about Lula, revelers dancing to the samba at New Year’s Eve parties and across the city, spontaneous cries ringing from the night sky. public and street corners, signaling the arrival of Mr. Lula and the departure of Mr. Bolsonaro.
“Lula’s inauguration was mostly about hope,” said Isabela Nascimento, 30, a software developer who walked to the festival on Sunday. “I hope to see him represent not just one political party but the entire population — a whole bunch of people who just want to be happier.”
Mr. Lula, 77 years old, completed a great political comeback on Sunday. He was once Brazil’s most popular president, leaving office with an approval rating of over 80%. He then spent 580 days in prison, from 2018 to 2019, for corruption for which he received an apartment and renovation work from construction companies bidding for government contracts.
After those convictions were dropped because the Supreme Court ruled that the judge in Lula’s case was biased, he ran for president again — and won.
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Mr. Lula and his supporters insist that he is the victim of political persecution. Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters say that Brazil now has a criminal as president.
Bolsonaro’s absence and the presence of thousands of protesters who say the election was stolen show deep divisions and major challenges that Mr. Lula will face for a third term as president of Latin America’s largest country and one of the world’s largest democracies.
He saw a boom in Brazil from 2003 to 2011, but back then the country was not nearly as polarized and the economic headwinds were much stronger. Mr. Lula’s election created a left-wing wave in Latin America, with six of the region’s seven largest countries electing leftist leaders since 2018, fueled by the backlash. revolt against incumbents.
Bolsonaro’s decision to spend at least the first weeks of Lula’s presidency in Florida also shows his anxiety about his future in Brazil. Mr. Bolsonaro, 67, is involved in five separate investigations, including one involving his release of documents related to a classified investigation, another into his attacks on Brazilian voting machines and another about his potential connection to the “digital militia” that spread misinformation on his behalf.
As an ordinary citizen, Mr Bolsonaro will now lose the immunity he enjoyed as president. Some of the cases against him will likely be moved to local courts from the Supreme Court.
Some of the top federal prosecutors who have worked on cases believe there is enough evidence to convict Bolsonaro, especially in a case involving the release of classified documents, according to a federal prosecutor. top states remain anonymous to discuss the undercover investigations. .
It is unlikely that Mr. Bolsonaro’s presence in the United States can protect him from prosecution in Brazil. However, Florida has become a haven for conservative Brazilians in recent years.
The experts featured on some of Brazil’s most popular talk shows are based in Florida. A far-right provocateur is facing arrest in Brazil for threatening judges already living in Florida as he awaits a response to his political asylum claim in the United States. And Carla Zambelli, one of Mr Bolsonaro’s top allies in Brazil’s Congress, fled to Florida for nearly three weeks after she was filmed chasing a man with a gun on the eve of the election.
“We have freedom here,” said Rodrigo Constantino, a prominent Brazilian right-wing commentator who lives near Miami.
Bolsonaro plans to stay in Florida for one to three months, giving him some distance to see if Lula’s administration is pushing for any investigations against him, according to a close friend who has not. the name of the Bolsonaro family. to discuss privacy plans.
“He will try to stay low for a while – to disappear,” Mr. Constantino said.
On Saturday, Mr Bolsonaro greeted his new neighbors in the driveway of his rented Orlando home, many of them Brazilian immigrants who took selfies with the outgoing president. go. He then go eat KFC.
It is not uncommon for former heads of state to live in the United States for positions in academia or similar projects. But it is unusual for a head of state to seek safe haven in the United States to avoid prosecution at home, especially when the host country is a democratic ally of the United States.
Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies argue that he is a political target of the Brazilian left and especially the Supreme Court of Brazil. They have largely abandoned the claim that the election was rigged because of voter fraud, but now argue that it was unfair because Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice, who runs Brazil’s electoral agency, has sided with Mr. Lula.
Mr Moraes was an active player in the election, suspending the social media accounts of many Bolsonaro supporters and giving Mr Lula more television time for misleading statements in advertisements. Bolsonaro’s politics. Mr Moraes has said he needs to take action against the anti-democratic stance of Mr Bolsonaro and his supporters. Some legal experts worried that he abused his poweroften act unilaterally in ways far beyond that of a typical Supreme Court justice.
However, Mr Bolsonaro has faced widespread criticism, on both the right and the left, for his response to the election defeat. After months of suggesting that he would protest any losses — provoking his supporters and worrying his critics — he instead kept quiet, refusing to publicly acknowledge his victory. Mr. Lula. His administration made the transition as he retired from the limelight and many of his official duties.
On Saturday night, in his address to the nation, even his vice president, Hamilton Mourão, a former general, made clear his views on Bolsonaro’s final moments as president. system.
“Leaders who should have reassured and united the nation around a project for the country have let their silence or ill-timed and harmful attitude of protest create the atmosphere,” Mr. Mourão said. chaos and social disintegration.
