Jair Bolsonaro arrived in Brasília on Thursday morning and went to the headquarters of the Liberal Party in the city centre. Both Bolsonaro and his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, took to the street to wave or greet some of the few supporters who had gathered on the street. An aide warned that the former chief would come down from the building and talk to them, but this was no longer expected. Inside the hotel where PL is based, Bolsonaro has already met with party members and allies from other opposition formations.
The party wanted by the former president and the Liberal Party was banned by the plans of the Federal Police, who imposed significant security measures and traffic restrictions around Brasilia Airport.
Bolsonaro landed before 11 a.m. (7 a.m. in Brasilia) and went through the normal procedures for someone landing on an international flight, but he left the airport’s reserved area already by car, in a delegation that included two police vans and headed to the party’s headquarters.
Exiting the airport, some supporters were waiting for them, upon arrival at PL headquarters too – far fewer than expected, says CNN Brasil, reporting on “a half-dozen cats”. The channel describes the popular crowd in this return as a “failure”.
“Where am I going to hug my boss?” asked Tania Rocha Cesar, one of the 100 to 200 people gathered in the arrivals area and heard by the newspaper. Newspaper. A 77-year-old housewife who took a bus from São Vicente to Brasilia, a journey that took more than 20 hours, was disappointed when she realized she would not be able to see him.
The difficulty of getting to the airport, and the fact that access to several areas is denied, will help that few people were waiting for him inside, explains CNN Brasil, who interviewed the former president before boarding the plane and accompanied him in this commercial. A flight. Among those supporters, who could not see Bolsonaro, cries of “legend, legend” were heard, as has been the norm since his election.
CNN justifies the live coverage of this return with the “unprecedented situation” that makes this a “political event” so significant: a president who is not re-elected for the first time, after the “most controversial” election in history and who decides not to pass the presidential election. Sash to his successor, Lula da Silva, and left the same country even before the end of his term.
Max Guilherme Machado de Moura, a retired sergeant in the military police of Rio de Janeiro, who has worked with Bolsonaro since he was a federal deputy and is one of his closest advisers, flew with him; Marcelo Costa Camara, an army colonel who was part of his security team and was in charge of “a kind of informal sector” of the secret services (according to the newspaper the world); and Sergio Rocha Cordero, chief of the army and special advisor to the former president since 2019.
“Captain is back”
Initially, Bolsonaro expected to address supporters and parade through the city in an open car, but the security scheme that had been prepared spoiled that goal. According to CNN, once Bolsonaro arrived, he was informed that he could not leave the airport via the regular route, a signal that was not optional, but determined by the federal police.
Upon arriving at the military headquarters, he ran through a room full of allies who tried to hug him and exclaimed, “The captain is back.” He was to meet first with his wife and children, with the party’s president, Waldemar Costa Neto, and his former defense minister, General Braga Neto, who was his “number two” in the race for the presidency, last year. This first meeting was to take place in the office of Michelle Bolsonaro, who just days ago took over as chair of PL Mulher.
Bolsonaro will now be the party’s honorary president.
In addition to restrictions at the airport and at the PL headquarters, traffic was partially closed on the Esplanada dos Ministérios, with a large police presence in Praça dos Três Poderes, which was attacked by its followers on 8 January.
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