Former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) has been in the US since December 30th.| Photo: Alan Santos/PR.

Former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) said he should return to Brazil in March to oppose President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PL). The statement was made in an interview with the US newspaper The Wall Street Journal published on Tuesday (14). Bolsonaro has been in the United States since December 30.

The former representative stated that “an arrest warrant can come out of nowhere” upon returning to the country and cited as an example the arrest of also former president Michel Temer (MDB) in 2019, three months after leaving the Planalto. He said he intends to be the leader of the right in Brazil. “The right-wing movement is not dead,” he stressed.

Bolsonaro acknowledged defeat in the 2022 elections and said that losing “is part of the electoral process”. The former president also spoke about the electoral process. “I’m not saying there was fraud, but the process was biased,” he said.

During the interview, he denied any responsibility for the acts of vandalism on January 8. For Bolsonaro, the invasion and depredation of the headquarters of the three Powers was not an attempt at a coup d’état. “Coup? What scam? Where was the boss? Where were the troops, where were the bombs?” he questioned.

Asked if he would do anything different in managing the Covid-19 pandemic, the former president said: “I wouldn’t say anything, I would leave the problem to the Ministry of Health”. He remembered when he linked the application of vaccines against the disease to “becoming an alligator”. “It was just a figure of speech, and I got hammered for it,” he said. During the campaign, Bolsonaro said he regretted statements made when commenting on the pandemic.