Source : NEW INDIAN EXPRESS NEWS
BRASILIA: Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro said Saturday he hopes Donald Trump will help him overcome his legal woes and work to oppose “judicial activism” in other countries.
Bolsonaro has said he was invited to attend Monday’s US presidential inauguration of Trump, a man he calls his hero.
But the Brazilian Supreme Court blocked him, citing the risk he might flee to escape an investigation into the alleged 2022 coup attempt as he tried to hold power after losing elections.
“His influence is already felt all over the world,” Bolsonaro told reporters, speaking of Trump.
“If he invited me, he must feel certain he can collaborate with Brazilian democracy to eliminate political disqualifications like the one on me.”
The 69-year-old politician has been barred from seeking office until 2030 after criticising and sowing doubt in Brazil’s electoral system ahead of the 2022 elections, which he lost to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro, who said he was “upset” at being barred from leaving the country, spoke to reporters at Brasilia’s airport while seeing off his wife Michelle, who will represent him at Trump’s inauguration in Washington.
Asked what power the incoming American president might have to influence Brazilian courts, Bolsonaro replied simply, “His mere presence.”
“He won’t accept that certain people around the world persecute their opponents,” he said.
“It’s the political activism that he himself has suffered from,” Bolsonaro added, referring to the long list of legal cases against the Republican leader.
Bolsonaro himself faces several criminal investigations.
In one of the most serious cases, prosecutors must decide whether to charge him with the crimes of the “violent abolition of the rule of law, coup d’etat and criminal organization,” after police determined that he was aware of, and actively participated in, a failed plan to block Lula’s inauguration. That case resulted in authorities confiscating Bolsonaro’s passport last February.
A former army captain, he has insisted on his innocence. He said Saturday he was the target of “enormous political persecution” aimed at “eliminating the right in Brazil.”
“I am a political prisoner,” Bolsonaro added, “even though I don’t wear an ankle bracelet.”
SOURCE :- NEW INDIAN EXPRESS
