Miami, (EFE).- The former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro said this Friday in Miami that “the north of a country is marked by the economy” and he does not feel “optimistic” with the Brazilian economic future due to the measures taken by the Government of President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva in his first month in power.
Bolsonaro spoke like this at the “Power of the People” event organized by the conservative group Turning Point USA at a golf club belonging to the business consortium of Donald Trump, former US president.
TPUSA leader, conservative political commentator and writer Charlie Kirk, introduced Bolsonaro as a fighter against socialism and Marxism and a defender of freedom before an audience of some 400 people, mostly Brazilians, but also Americans.
Amid shouts such as “Lula, thief, go back to prison” and other praiseworthy references to him, Bolsonaro reviewed his four years in government and especially his economic and social policies.
With irony he said that, having done all that, he still wonders how Lula, leader of the leftist Workers Party, who was booed by the public, won the elections.
It was an apparent allusion by Bolsonaro to alleged electoral fraud, something that the TPUSA leader said “sounded familiar” to him, referring to Trump, who claims without evidence that he was the victim of robbery in the 2021 elections, won by the Democrat Joe Biden.
Bolsonaro, 67, has been in the US since December 30 and is awaiting a “visa change” requested by his lawyer in January to stay longer in this country, which he arrived while still president.
Those attending the event, many wearing shirts in the colors of Brazil, received the far-right ex-president (2019-2023) standing up and applauding.
During the act there were no references to the attack perpetrated on January 8 by Bolsonaro members on the headquarters of the three state powers in Brasilia, from which Bolsonaro timidly disassociated himself in a statement issued from Orlando (Florida), where he is temporarily residing.
Smiling, very tanned and joking, Bolsonaro thanked the reception that his compatriots living in Florida have given him.
He assured that many of them thought of returning to Brazil if he was re-elected, but they gave up doing so, and he implied that he is not going to retire from active politics in Brazil.
Bolsonaro does not resign from Brazil
“We are not going to give up on Brazil,” he stressed.
He also said that he is taking advantage of this moment “to recharge the batteries.”
At the end of his speech, interrupted by shouts of “myth, myth, myth”, as his followers call him to mean that what he did in Brazil during his Presidency was extraordinary, he answered questions from the organizer of the event.
Regarding the advance of the left in Latin America, he said that “unfortunately the false speeches, the promises of a paradise on earth, drag many people down”, and warned that freedom is something precious that “must be taken care of daily” and is at risk”.
At this point, he spoke of “dear Venezuela” to point out that he was “sad” that left-wing Brazilian politicians, whom he did not mention, have contributed to creating “hunger and poverty” in a country that has the largest oil reserves. of the world.
In his opinion, socialism and the left in general want to “equalize the people, but in misery.”
This first public act by Bolsonaro since the elections, as presented by Turning Point USA, came ahead of Lula’s first visit to the US since he took office, scheduled for next week and during which he will meet with Biden.
In a letter addressed to President Biden after the incidents in Brasilia, a group of 46 Democratic legislators asked that Bolsonaro’s visa be revoked on the grounds that “authoritarian” leaders who “inspire acts of violence” cannot be given refuge. against democratic institutions.
This same week Bolsonaro, who did not participate in the transfer of power to Lula da Silva on January 1, was honored in Orlando (Florida) by some 600 of his compatriots.
Regarding Lula’s government, he said in that tribute: “you can be sure (…) if it continues in the line that it demonstrated in these first 30 days, it will not last long.”
At the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, on January 14, the Supreme Court of Brazil included the former Brazilian president in the list of those investigated for the attempted coup.