Jair Bolsonaro

Bolsonaro began serving in the Brazilian Army in 1973 and graduated from the Military Academy of Agulhas Negras in 1977. He rose to publicity in 1986 after he wrote an article for Veja magazine criticizing low wages for military officers, after which he was arrested and detained for fifteen days. He left the army and was elected to the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro two years later. In 1990, Bolsonaro was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a representative for the state of Rio de Janeiro. During his 27-year tenure as a congressman, he became known for his national conservatism. Bolsonaro entered the 2018 Brazilian presidential election, during which he started to advocate economically liberal and pro-market policies.^[1] He led in the 7 October first round results and defeated Fernando Haddad in the 28 October runoff.


Bolsonaro focused on domestic affairs in his first months as president, dealing primarily with the fallout of the 2014 Brazilian economic crisis. The economy recovered slowly, while crime rates fell sharply during the first year.^[2][3] He rolled back protections for Indigenous groups in the Amazon rainforest^[4] and facilitated its deforestation.^[5] Bolsonaro's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil was criticized across the political spectrum after he sought to downplay the pandemic and its effects, opposed quarantine measures, and dismissed two health ministers, while the death toll increased rapidly.^[6]


In the runoff of the 2022 general election, Bolsonaro lost to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.^[7] On 8 January 2023, his supporters stormed federal government buildings, calling for a coup d'état. On 30 June, the Superior Electoral Court blocked Bolsonaro from seeking office until 2030 for attempting to undermine the validity of the election through his unfounded claims of voter fraud, and for abusing his power by using government communication channels to both promote his campaign and to allege fraud. Testimonies from military officials showed that Bolsonaro had allegedly planned a self-coup with the military to keep himself in power.


A polarizing and controversial politician, Bolsonaro's views and comments, which have been described as far-right and populist, drew both praise and criticism in Brazil.^{[8][9][10][11]} He is a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage,^[12][13] abortion,^[14] affirmative action,^[15] drug liberalization,^[16] and secularism.^[16] In foreign policy, he has advocated closer relations with Israel and with the United States;^[17][18] later in his presidency, he also made efforts to improve relations with the BRICS countries.^[19][20][21]

Post-presidency (2023–present)

On December 30, 2022, one day before Bolsonaro's term ended, he arrived in Florida and resided in Kissimmee for a couple of months.^[166][167] On 8 January 2023, his supporters attacked the buildings of the Supreme Court of Brazil, the National Congress of Brazil and the Planalto Presidential Palace in an attempt to instigate a military coup d'état and reinstate Bolsonaro as president.^[168] While the riots were going on, President Lula blamed Bolsonaro in a press conference.^[168][169] Bolsonaro condemned the protesters in a tweet on 9 January,^[170] and denied responsibility.^[169] In February 2023, Bolsonaro announced that he would be returning to Brazil in March.^[171] This would be the first time Bolsonaro returned to the country since December 2022.^[172] Bolsonaro had entered the United States on a diplomatic visa which expired on 31 January, but the family applied for tourist visas to extend their stay in Florida.^[173]


Bolsonaro returned to Brazil in March 2023 for the first time since his supporters stormed the Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidential palace two months before. Bolsonaro has stated that he returned to the country to help his party and asserted that he intended to campaign for the 2024 elections.^[174] On 14 April 2023, Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered Bolsonaro to submit himself for questioning with the Brazilian Federal Police over the storming of the Congress.^[175] On 30 June 2023, the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court barred Bolsonaro from running for public office until 2030 as a result of his attempts to undermine the validity of Brazil's 2022 democratic election, as well as for abuse of power with regards to using government channels to promote his campaign.^[176][177] The decision applies to municipal, state and federal elections for the next eight years. He was prosecuted for several allegations of fraud in the 2022 Brazilian elections and situations linked to the January 8 attack on federal government buildings. The decision came after a 5–2 vote in favor of conviction. Following the decision, Bolsonaro stated his intentions to appeal.^[177][178] On 31 October 2023, Bolsonaro was again convicted by the Superior Electoral Court over abuse of power for using official Brazil's Independence Day ceremony to promote himself as a candidate which is banned under the Brazilian law. Former Minister of Defence Walter Braga Netto, who also attended the ceremony, and also ran for vice president on Bolsonaro's ticket, was convicted by the Court and ruled disqualified, like Bolsonaro, to run for any office for the next eight years.^[179]


In February 2024, the Brazilian Federal Police raided former government officials and ordered Bolsonaro to hand in his passport over accusations that he and his allies tried to overturn the results of the 2022 election and planned a coup d'etat.^[180] In March 2024, witness documents released by the Superior Electoral Court were made public. According to two military officials, Bolsonaro had plotted to overturn the 2022 results and presented top military officials a plan to carry out a coup with the goal of keeping him in power. In his testimony, former Brazilian Army commander Marco Antônio Freire Gomes said that he had warned Bolsonaro the army would not tolerate "any act of institutional rupture", and further added that Bolsonaro's actions could result in his arrest. Former Brazilian Air Force commander Carlos Baptista Júnior testified that he tried to dissuade Bolsonaro of "any extreme measure" and expressed his belief that Freire Gomes was instrumental in avoiding the use of a legal document that Bolsonaro presented in several meetings in December 2022 to overturn the results of the election. Baptista Júnior further said that the then Brazilian Navy commander Almir Garnier told Bolsonaro he would put his troops at his disposal, and commented: "If the commander [Freire Gomes] had agreed, possibly, a coup d'etat attempt would have taken place."^{[181][182][183]}


In late March 2024, The New York Times released a footage from internal security cameras in the Hungarian embassy in Brasilia showing Bolsonaro and his aides and bodyguards entering the building on February 12 and leaving the place on February 14. This happened after his Brazilian and Italian passports were confiscated, and Bolsonaro was prohibited from leaving the country due to an investigation about an alleged plot to carry out a military coup in Brazil. Bolsonaro was welcomed by Hungarian ambassador to Brazil Miklós Halmai who reportedly sent the embassy's local employees a message to work from home during those dates.^[184] Following the report, the Brazilian Supreme Court gave Bolsonaro a 48-hours deadline to explain his stay in the embassy,^[185] and the Federal Police announced it was opening an investigation into the incident; which could have been viewed as an attempt to escape justice via diplomatic asylum, since embassies are typically considered inviolable and host countries cannot enforce their law inside them without permission.^[186] Media commentators and people on social media speculated this hypothesis was likely to be true citing Bolsonaro and Hungarian prime-minister Viktor Órban are both far-right politicans who share a personal friendship, and Hungary's previous granting of asylum to sanctioned former Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski.^[187][188] Additionally, Itamaraty (Brazil's Foreign Ministry) summoned Halmai to give explanations about Bolsonaro's two-nights stay in the embassy.^[189]


On 19 March 2024, federal police formally accused Bolsanaro of fraud on his COVID-19 vaccine records.^[190]