Jair Bolsonaro has announced Brazil’s “liberation from socialism, inverted values, the bloated state and political correctness” after being sworn in as the country’s 42nd president.
His words delighted a crowd of more than 100,000 – many of whom had travelled to its modernist capital for the event, convinced the far-right populist can rescue their troubled country from virulent corruption, rising violent crime and economic doldrums.
The former army captain and his wife Michelle waved to crowds from an open-topped Rolls Royce before he and his vice-president, retired army general Hamilton Mourão, were sworn in at Congress.
In a brief speech to the chamber of deputies, Bolsonaro thanked God for surviving from a near-fatal knife attack during the election campaign and invited lawmakers to help Brazil free itself from “corruption, criminality and economic irrresponsibility and ideological submission”.
“We have a unique opportunity before us to reconstruct our country and rescue the hope of our compatriots,” he said. “We are going to unite the people, rescue the family, respect religions and our Judeo-Christian tradition, combat genre ideology, conserving our values.”
He also referred to campaign promises such as freeing up gun possession. “Good citizens deserve the means to defend themselves,” he said. Bolsonaro said he was counting on Congress support to provide “legal support” for police to do their work; he has promised impunity for police who kill criminals. “They deserve it and must be respected,” he said.
Bolsonaro has enjoyed the support of Brazil’s powerful agribusiness sector, which he said will have an “increase in efficiency” with “less bureaucracy” – words which will alarm environmentalists and indigenous activists concerned by his plans to reduce to streamline environmental licensing and allow commercial mining and farming on protected indigenous reserves.
These fears seem justified, in one of his first acts as president, just hours after being sworn in, Bolsonaro took the power to identify and demarcate indigenous reserves from the National Indian Foundation (Funai), giving it to the Ministry of Agriculture, according to local media reports.
He also took aim at the leftist Workers’ party he has painted as communists responsible for all Brazil’s ills, from crime to corruption.
“Irresponsibility conducted us to the worst ethical, moral and economic crisis in our history,” he said.
Minutes afterwards, Donald Trump tweeted that Bolsonaro had made a “great inauguration speech”, adding: “The U.S.A is with you!”
Shortly afterwards, Bolsonaro’s Twitter account replied: “Dear Mr. President @realDonaldTrump, I truly appreciate your words of encouragement. Together, under God’s protection, we shall bring prosperity and progress to our people.”
Bolsonaro, a former army captain who served seven undistinguished terms as a member of Brazil’s lower house, was until this year regarded as a marginal figure known for his outbursts against leftists and LGBT people. He rode a wave of righteous anger to power provoked by sweeping corruption scandals and economic recession that Bolsonaro blamed on the leftist Workers’ party that ran Brazil for 13 years.
In an aggressive and deeply polarised campaign that made adept use of social media, Bolsonaro focused attacks leftist former presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – currently serving a prison sentence for graft – and his successor Dilma Rousseff, impeached in 2016 for breaking budget rules.
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