Jair Bolsonaro confronts journalists and attacks: “They urge me to be a dictator”

In a televised interview that had a large audience, the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, set the conditions for recognizing the result of the October 2 elections, in which he asks for re-election.

And, at a strong crossroads with reporters, he said he is urged to be a “dictator” when his alliance with parties suspected of corruption is questioned.

Bolsonaro was interviewed in National Newspaper of the Globo network, the most important of Brazilian television, which according to the first measurements recorded a record audience this Monday evening.

The host, William Bonner, asked the president why he joined the party group known as “Centrao”, which he accused of being a group of “thieves” during the 2018 election campaign.

“You are encouraging me to be a dictator,” saying not to include that group in the official alliance, replied the president, who was bothered by the questions in several sections of the interview.

And then he added: «Centrao has 300 deputies (out of a total of 513), if I leave out Centrao« with whom do I govern? Will I leave Parliament aside? So you encourage me to be a dictator?

Elsewhere in the interview, the head of state and candidate for the Liberal Party (PL, right) was established. conditions for respecting the result of the elections.

To overcome “the unrest that Brazil is experiencing, don’t you want to take advantage of this opportunity before millions (spectators) make a commitment to respect the result?” Asked the journalist.

“The poll results will be respected as long as the elections are clean and transparent. You say the (electronic) polls are verifiable, but in 2014 they weren’t,” assured the president.

For several weeks Bolsonaro has been sowing doubts about the transparency of the electronic ballot box system that has been used for years in Brazil. But the electoral court and the president’s own environment ruled out the possibility of fraud.

Bolsonaro said his supporters have the right to “freedom of expression,” so they can’t be prohibited from insulting judges or asking for military intervention.

protests

He stated this in the context of his own appeal to protest against Justice and electronic ballot boxes in two military acts to be held in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro on September 7, Independence Day

He also reiterated that the military must control the elections due to their distrust of the Higher Electoral Court (TSE).

In election speeches, the president recently stated that the TSE was part of a plot to allow a “fraud” to be carried out in favor of the opposition candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of the Workers’ Party (PT, left). which appears in the lead in all polls on voting intentions.

This was TV Globo’s first interview with the main candidates in the October elections.

Next Thursday, former president Lula da Silva will be interviewed, who according to a poll released Monday by the FSB agency has 45% of voting intentions compared to 36% of Bolsonaro.

In this poll, as in others published in recent weeks, Lula is first with a stable vote, while Bolsonaro showed growth constant.

This advance in the polls was helped by the major social aid program worth some $ 8 billion that began rolling out this month, analysts say.

TV criticism

In another section of the interview, Bolsonaro said his government did the right thing in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and He rejected the questions about delayed vaccination.

The president criticized TV Globo for opposing the controversial “early treatment” for the disease, based on the drug hydroxychloroquine, which he himself recommended during the pandemic, which claimed more than 680,000 lives in Brazil.

After finishing the interview, the president, his son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and government officials went to dinner at a well-known restaurant in the north of Rio de Janeiro, where they were satisfied with the service on an “opposition” channel. . The ruling party features Globo and interviewer William Bonner.

“It was a great satisfaction to participate in William Bonner’s statement, hahahaha”, the head of state commented on social media.

The newspaper Folha of San Paolo published Tuesday: “The allies see a positive balance and emphasize that Bolsonaro has not lost his balance in the Jornal Nacional”.

For its part, the State of São Paulo headlined: “Bolsonaro told a lie every three minutes at the Jornal Nacional”.

Source: ANSA

CB