Bolsonaro says in Miami that the economy is on the wrong track with Lula

By: News Team

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Bolsonaro says in Miami that the economy is on the wrong track with Lula

The former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro said Friday in Miami that “the north of a country is marked by the economy” and does not feel “optimistic” about the Brazilian economic future due to the measures taken by the Government of President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in his first month in power.

Bolsonaro spoke 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 president of the United States.

TPUSA’s leader, conservative political commentator and writer Charlie Kirk, presented Bolsonaro as a fighter against socialism and Marxism and a defender of freedom before an audience of about 400 people, mostly Brazilians, but also Americans.

Amid shouts such as “Lula, thief, return to prison” and other praise referring to the former president, Bolsonaro reviewed his four years of 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 election.

It was an apparent allusion by Bolsonaro to alleged electoral fraud, something the TPUSA leader said “sounded familiar” to him, referring to Donald Trump, who claims without evidence to have been the victim of a robbery in the 2021 election, won by 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 as president.

Those attending the event, many wearing T-shirts with the colors of Brazil, received standing and applause to the former far-right president (2019-2023).

During the act there were no references to the attack perpetrated on January 8 by Bolsonaristas to the headquarters of the three powers of the state in Brasilia, from which Bolsonaro timidly dissociated 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 based in Florida have given him.

He said that many of them planned to return to Brazil if he was re-elected, but desisted from doing so, and implied that he will not retire from active politics in Brazil.

BOLSONARO DOES NOT RENOUNCE BRAZIL

“We are not going to give up Brazil,” he stressed.

He also said 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 the questions of the organizer of the event.

On the advance of the left in Latin America, he said that “unfortunately false speeches, promises of a paradise on earth, drag many people,” and warned that freedom is something precious that “must be taken care of daily” and is “at risk.”

At this point he spoke of “beloved Venezuela” to point out that he was “sad” that leftist Brazilian politicians, whom he did not mention, have contributed to creating “hunger and poverty” in a country that has the largest reserves of petroleum of the world.

In his opinion, socialism and the left in general want to “equalize the people, but in misery.”

This first public act of Bolsonaro since the elections, as presented by Turning Point USA, was ahead of Lula’s first visit to the US since his inauguration, scheduled for next week and during which he will meet with President Joe Biden.

In a letter addressed to President Biden after the incidents in Brasilia, a group of 46 Democratic legislators called for Bolsonaro’s visa to be revoked, arguing that “authoritarian” leaders who “inspire acts of violence against democratic institutions” cannot be given refuge.

This week Bolsonaro, who did not participate in the transmission of command to Lula da Silva on January 1, was honored in Orlando (Florida) by some 600 of his compatriots.

On Lula’s government he said in that tribute: “you can be sure (…) If he continues in the line he showed 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 coup attempt.

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