Bolsonaro returns to Brazil, ending self-imposed exile

Jair Bolsonaro, the former right-wing president of Brazil, returned home Thursday morning after a three-month self-imposed exile in the United States following his defeat last year in an election that tested the stability of one of the world’s biggest democracies.

He returns to a series of investigations and could face arrest if charged over his role in spreading baseless claims that Brazil’s election system was vulnerable to fraud — despite reviews by independent security experts showing otherwise — and that the left was bent on stealing the vote.

In January, Brazil’s Supreme Court said it would investigate Bolsonaro for inspiring the far-right mob that invaded and ransacked the country’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices on Jan. 8, underscoring that the former president could soon face legal consequences for an extremist movement he helped build.

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Not long after his arrival Thursday, in his first interview with a news outlet back in Brazil, Bolsonaro defended his supporters and echoed a new theory that has gained traction with his allies despite lacking evidence, suggesting that acts of violence during the January riots were not perpetrated by his followers.

“In all the movements that our people participated in, and there were several throughout all these years, you didn’t see a burned garbage can, a broken window. Nothing. People went with their families, with their children, and their elders. This movement was peaceful on their part,” he told a conservative news channel, Jovem Pan. “Our people didn’t do, in my view, anything against the law.”

Bolsonaro also defended his allies’ push for a congressional inquiry into whether the protests were infiltrated during the January ransacking, and said that acts of violence against federal buildings in Brasília were “organized some hours before” they happened. He went on to accuse the government of trying to impede the inquiry, implying that it was trying to hide something.

Bolsonaro is the subject of five other Supreme Court inquiries, including for accusations of spreading misinformation, his handling of the pandemic and a leak of classified information when he discussed a hack of the country’s election agency to support his claims that Brazil’s voting system is unsafe.

He also faces over a dozen investigations by the country’s electoral body. If convicted in any of those cases, he would be ineligible for office for eight years.

Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing in relation to the January riot, and has defended himself in other investigations into his conduct.

The political climate in Brazil has been tense since Bolsonaro’s departure, with many of his allies calling for his return. For his part, Bolsonaro has been critical of the current leftist administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula.

Although the chair of Lula’s Workers’ Party, congresswoman Gleisi Hoffman, released a video mocking Bolsonaro’s return — inviting him “to see how the country has improved in his absence” — Lula himself did not immediately comment on it.

Lula’s government instead went on with a show of work as usual. His finance minister presented a bill for a new fiscal framework, and Lula, recovering from pneumonia, reaffirmed Brazil’s bid to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup during a FIFA event at his residence.

During his time in the United States, which he largely spent in Florida, Bolsonaro met with conservative activists and pundits, appearing at various events, from the Conservative Political Action Conference to the opening of a burger restaurant.

At the airport in Brasília on Thursday morning, dozens of supporters gathered at the arrivals gate to greet Bolsonaro, though he was prevented from meeting with them. Federal Police officials ordered the former president and his staff to use a separate exit for security reasons.

Bolsonaro’s motorcade then took him to his Liberal Party headquarters, where he met with high-ranking right-wing politicians, family members and some of his staunchest allies.

He received a warm welcome there from his colleagues and former Cabinet ministers, who chanted “the captain is back” and posted photos and videos of his arrival on social media.

“Welcome, Mr. President,” said Valdemar Costa Neto, the Liberal Party’s chair. “You have been missed. You will always be missed.”

Bolsonaro then headed to a closed-door meeting with party leaders and lawmakers.

In a short speech to conservative lawmakers, Bolsonaro hailed Florida as a model for Brazil. The state’s Republican governor and Legislature have been advancing a conservative agenda on guns, education and other issues.

“Our dream is to follow this North American state in many of the good things it has there,” Bolsonaro said. “The vast majority of actions are beneficial. That is the Brazilian state that worked.”

He added: “Everything there is what we want to implement here too: freedom of expression, private property, the issue of criminality, the legitimate right to self-defense. The most important is freedom for people to work, express themselves and get on with life.”

Despite the investigations hovering over him, Bolsonaro is set to take office next week as honorary chair of the Liberal Party, the main opposition force in Congress to Lula’s administration.

“I will not lead any opposition,” he told CNN Brasil in an interview published Wednesday, adding that he would simply “participate with my party” and that Lula’s government would be hampered by its own flaws.