“I’m not going to have a party,” Jair Bolsonaro replied to versions of his trip to the United States not to make the transition of command with Lula

The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, referred to his possible trip this week to the United States to stay close to his ally, former US president Donald Trump, for three months and therefore avoid passing the presidential sash Sunday 1 January to the president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“I’m not going to have a party. False. I will not travel this Wednesday. False,” Bolsonaro briefly told CNN Brazil, before press reports that he has everything set to move to Orlando, Florida, for three months, where much part of the Brazilian far right is abroad.

It is not known whether there will be any authority from Bolsonaro in the change of command, in the ceremony scheduled at the door of Palazzo Planalto, the seat of government, after the oath in front of Congress.

According to political sources close to Bolsonaro quoted by the local press, the head of state, who has barely worked four days since he lost his re-election to Lula on October 30, could travel to the United States tomorrow or Friday.

The Brazilian press has indicated that Carlos Bolsonaro, son of the president and councilor of Rio de Janeiro and digital adviser to his father, is already in Florida, considered the head of the so-called “cabinet of hatred”, the fake news machine of social networks which is under criminal investigation in the supreme court.

According to far-right advisers, Bolsonaro should spend New Year’s Eve in the Mar-a-Lago condominium in Palm Beach, Florida, owned by former US president Trump. Both were there in 2020, as presidents.

Bolsonaro has not openly acknowledged the electoral defeat and has not condemned the December 12 attacks in Brasilia, when Bolsonaro launched a series of attacks in the streets, burning more than a dozen vehicles against Lula’s presidential diploma.

Security around Lula’s inauguration ceremony to be tightened after a plan executed by a Bolsonaro businessman accused of putting dynamite in a tanker truck to try to blow up the international airport was uncovered over the weekend of Brasilia.

George Washington Sousa, accused of terrorism and with an arsenal in his rented apartment in Brasilia, confessed to police that he intended to cause chaos and induce Bolsonaro to declare a state of siege before Lula took office.

On the other hand, the National Security Force, the federal government’s elite police, joined the operation on January 1 in Brasilia for Lula’s inauguration ceremony, as part of strengthening security measures, especially as thousands of protesters camped out at the army headquarters in Brasilia, calling for a coup to keep Bolsonaro in power.