Jair Bolsonaro pinned because of his big expenses
NELSON ALMEIDA / AFP
Jair Bolsonaro, pictured here last October during a televised debate, now finds himself singled out for his lavish spending when he was Brazil’s president.
BRAZIL – This is a revelation that will not improve his case after the invasion of places of power by his supporters. Some 20,000 euros in a modest restaurant, almost 10,000 euros in a bakery the day after his son’s wedding: former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s lifting of secrecy on expenses exposes extraordinary costs.
Statements of accounts for the president’s credit cards during his four years in office (2019-2022) have been published on the official online website of the leftist government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his successor, who has begun to divulge 100 years of secrecy. by his right-wing predecessors on thousands of official documents. A total of 27.6 million reais (almost five million euros at current exchange rates) was spent on this card, which is used by 21 people in his team.
If we consider the amount corrected for inflation, these expenditures are almost half of those of Lula’s first period (2003-2006). But in the case of the latter, they are primarily concerned with accommodation costs for overseas trips. This is not the case for Jair Bolsonaro, who also boasted several times that his mandate did not expire ” one penny with the presidential credit card, unlike its predecessor.
Enough to order more than 2,000 times the most expensive dish
The information website Uol, for example, notes that 1.2 million reais (about 217,000 euros) were spent during the former head of State’s 28 days of official year-end holidays in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Payments of more than 71,000 reais (nearly 13,000 euros) for example made on January 2, 2022 at a gas station in the state of Santa Catarina, where Jair Bolsonaro had caused a protest while riding a jet-ski during severe flooding in parts of the country. his country.
The presidential credit card was also used to pay 1.46 million reais (more than 230,000 euros) in four years at a luxury hotel in Guaruja, a seaside resort near São Paulo. According to the online site G1, this hotel housed members of his team while he was staying at the military compound.
The biggest spender on food is also the one that raises the most questions: 109,266 reais (about 20,000 euros) was spent in one sitting at a modest restaurant in Boa Vista, in the Amazonian state of Roraima (north). Simply ordering more than 2,000 times the most expensive dish, roast chicken with cassava flour, for the modest price of 50 reais (nine euros).
The presidential 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, including 55,000 reais the day after his son Eduardo’s wedding and 33,000 the day before. organized by his sympathizers in the streets of this city. In total, 8,600 reais (about 1,500 euros) were spent at the ice cream stand, that is, 62 purchases across five establishments.
And because trouble never comes alone, the draft decree found in former President Jair Bolsonaro’s former Brazilian Minister of Justice should further complicate the case for the ousted president.
A damning document for the bolsonaries
According to the daily Folha de S. Paulo, the document contained emergency measures that would allow the annulment of the election results won by Lula. Dangerously, the draft decree was discovered during a search by Federal Police of the home of Anderson Torres, who was the subject of an arrest warrant from a Supreme Court judge on charges of “collusion” in Bolsonaris’ attack on places of power in Brasilia on Sunday.
The three-page text, the contents of which were published by newspapers on Friday, provides for the federal government to take control of the High Electoral Court (TSE), which oversees the smooth running of the vote, “to ensure the preservation and transparency of recovery, and approve the regularity of the 2022 presidential election process.” “. An act considered unconstitutional by many legal experts. In practice, this meant the intention was to overturn Lula’s election.
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 for a coup if it loses. Because if the document is undated, but Jair Bolsonaro’s name is at the end, in the space reserved for his signature.
Anderson Torres, who is in the United States, said on Twitter that this draft is ” perhaps in a pile of documents that should have been destroyed in time » and the contents have been disclosed voluntarily and « out of context “. However he has stopped professing his innocence and promised to return to Brazil to surrender to the authorities, without specifying a date, however. Except that Lula’s justice minister, Flavio Dino, said on Friday that he would seek extradition if he did not come forward to Brazilian authorities on Monday.
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