NELSON ALMEIDA / AFP
Jair Bolsonaro, pictured here during a televised debate last October, is now being singled out for his lavish spending as Brazil’s president.
BRAZIL – These are revelations that will not improve his case after his followers invade places of power. Around 20,000 euros in a modest restaurant, almost 10,000 euros in a bakery the day after his son’s wedding: the lifting of ex-Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s secret of expenses brought to light unbelievable costs.
Statements for the president’s credit card during his four-year term (2019-2022) have been released on an official online site of the left-wing government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his successor, who has begun to unveil a 100-year-old secrecy imposed by his far-right predecessor on thousands of official documents. A total of 27.6 million reais (almost five million euros at the current exchange rate) was spent using this card, which was used by 21 people on his team.
Adjusted for inflation, this expenditure is almost half what it was in Lula’s first term (2003-2006). However, the latter mainly related to accommodation costs for trips abroad. Not so Jair Bolsonaro, who boasted several times during his tenure that, unlike his predecessors, he had “not spent a cent” on the presidential credit card.
Enough to order the most expensive dish more than 2,000 times
The information website Uol noted that in the 28 days of the former head of state’s official end-of-year vacation in 2019, 2020 and 2021, 1.2 million reais (around 217,000 euros) were spent. For example, a payment of more than 71,000 reais (almost 13,000 euros) was generated on January 2, 2022 at a gas station in the state of Santa Catarina, where Jair Bolsonaro had caused an outcry while riding a jet ski when devastating floods hit several parts of his country .
Also in a luxury hotel in Guaruja, a seaside resort near São Paulo, 1.46 million reais (more than 230,000 euros) were paid with the presidential credit card in four years. According to online site G1, this hotel housed members of his team while he was at a military compound.
The biggest food spending is also the one that raises the most questions: 109,266 reais (about 20,000 euros) was spent at one time in a modest restaurant in Boa Vista in the Amazon state of Roraima (north). Enough to order more than 2,000 times the most expensive dish, fried chicken with cassava flour, for the modest price of 50 reais (nine euros).
The president’s credit card was also used to pay more than 362,000 reais (65,000 euros) in four years at a bakery in Rio de Janeiro, 55,000 of them all at once the day after his son Eduardo’s wedding and 33,000 the day before a motorcycle procession organized by his sympathizers in the streets of this city. A total of 8,600 reais (around 1,500 euros) was spent in ice cream parlors, i.e. 62 purchases in five establishments.
And since trouble never comes alone, a draft decree found in ex-President Jair Bolsonaro’s former justice minister is likely to further complicate the ousted president’s case.
A scathing document for Bolsonarists
According to the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, this document provided for emergency measures that could have allowed the result of the elections won by Lula to be annulled. The highly compromising draft order was found during federal police searches at the home of Anderson Torres, who is the subject of an arrest warrant from a Supreme Court judge for alleged “collusion” in the Bolsonarists’ attack on centers of power in Brazil on Sunday.
The three-page text, the contents of which were released by the newspaper on Friday, sees the federal government taking control of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which oversees the smooth running of the ballot “to ensure preservation and restoration.” transparency and confirmation of the regularity of the electoral process for the 2022 presidential election”. A measure that many legal scholars consider unconstitutional. In practice, this means that Lula’s election should be annulled.
According to La Folha de S. Paulo, which exposed the scandal, this draft could be the first irrefutable proof that Jair Bolsonaro’s entourage is preparing a coup in the event of defeat. Because if the document is not dated, Jair Bolsonaro’s name will appear at the end, in a space provided for his signature.
Anderson Torres, who resides in the United States, said on Twitter that this draft “was probably in a stack of documents to be destroyed in due course” and that its contents were intentionally disclosed and “taken out of context.” be. In any case, he has stopped protesting his innocence and has promised to return to Brazil to face the authorities, without giving an exact date. Just Lula’s Justice Minister Flavio Dino said Friday he would request his extradition if he didn’t make a complaint to Brazilian authorities by Monday.
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