BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Former President Jair Bolsonaro returned Thursday to Brazil after a three-month stint in Florida following his election loss, and the right-wing populist told supporters he doesn’t think leftists will be in power in Brazil for long.
Bolsonaro, who is the subject of several investigations that could stymie any attempts at a political comeback, arrived in a capital under tight security. Authorities sought to avoid any repeat of Jan. 8 events when supporters who didn’t accept his defeat stormed government buildings. Police in Brasilia blocked the main artery to those buildings.
Hundreds of supporters dressed in Brazil’s national colors of yellow and green chanted for Bolsonaro as they awaited his arrival, but his return did not draw the huge crowds many of his allies had expected. That appeared to please his opponents; current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s minister of institutional relations, Alexandre Padilha, called the reception a “flop.”
The former president said in his first speech after touching down that his leftist successor and his allies “will not do whatever they want to the fate of our nation,” and added that the left will only keep power “for now, for a little while.”
Speaking in front of a banner that read “today Brazil woke up stronger,” Bolsonaro said he would spend as much time as necessary at the headquarters of his Liberal Party to help the campaign for next year’s municipal races when the country elects 5,500 mayors nationwide.