Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro Launches Reelection Bid in City Where He Was Stabbed

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro speaks during the launching of his re-election camp
MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP via Getty Images
Frances Martel

Brazil officially opened its presidential election campaign season on Tuesday, sending the frontrunners – incumbent conservative President Jair Bolsonaro and socialist ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – to address large crowds of supporters and make their extremely different pitches on why they should run the country.

For his official debut as a 2022 presidential candidate, Bolsonaro chose to return to Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais state, the site at which a socialist attempted to stab him to death during his 2018 campaign. Bolsonaro described the location Tuesday as the place where he was “born again.”

Lula da Silva, who was unable to compete against Bolsonaro in the 2018 election because he was convicted of using the presidency to amass personal wealth, gave his first official speech as a candidate in front of a factory in Sao Paulo, emphasizing his roots as a leftist union organizer, insulting Bolsonaro as a “Pharisee,” and accusing him of being “possessed by the devil.”

Prior to Tuesday, presidential candidates – of which there are officially 12 – could announce their intention to run for the nation’s highest office but could not legally ask citizens for their vote.

Bolsonaro had largely abstained from visiting Juiz de Fora since his assassination attempt, though the Brazilian site UOL noted that he did return a month ago for an Evangelical Christian event and to visit the local hospital that saved his life. Like his campaign stop in 2018, a crowd that appeared to contain thousands of people filled the streets of the city to listen to him speak. Despite heightened security, Bolsonaro took the time to shake hands with the crowd and get close to residents.

In September 2018, Bolsonaro did the same, with minimal security. While his supporters carried him on their shoulders, a man later identified as socialist Adelio Bispo de Oliveira stabbed him repeatedly in the abdomen, almost killing Bolsonaro and leaving him with recurring digestive system and muscular problems. The assassination attempt was caught on video.

Bispo de Oliveira later told police that he believed God had commanded him to kill Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro did not dwell on his survival in his speech on Tuesday, instead focusing on attacking Lula and his socialist Workers’ Party (PT) and touting what he has framed as the biggest success of his presidency: refusing to impose nationwide lockdowns to stop the spread of Chinese coronavirus.

“We didn’t err,” he insisted, referring to his coronavirus response.

He also attributed Brazil’s struggles with poverty and inequality, and especially corruption, to the long-term rule by the Brazilian left that began when Lula took power in 2003.

“Brazil is a great nation, it is a great country, but until recently it was being robbed by the left that was in power,” Bolsonaro said, according to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo. He went on to insist Brazil “doesn’t want more corruption. Our country wants order and prosperity. Compare the four years of my government with the four that the other guy was president for.”

Bolsonaro reportedly abstained from his most insulting campaign rhetoric against Lula. Last month, in contrast to Tuesday, Bolsonaro campaigned by referring to Lula as a “drunkard” – a concern prominent enough to have made the pages of the far-left New York Times in 2004 – and recalling Lula’s corruption conviction. Lula was sentenced to upwards of two decades in prison in 2019 after being convicted of using public funds to buy a luxury beachfront property while president. The court concluded he procured the money through what is now known as “Operation Car Wash,” a corruption scheme developed during his time as president in which private contractors overcharged the government for infrastructure projects, then kicked back part of the extra money to politicians as a bribe.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, with impeached former president Dilma Rousseff, gestures to supporters at the headquarters of the Metalworkers’ Union where a Catholic Mass was held in memory of his late wife Marisa Leticia on April 7, 2018, in the Sao Bernardo do Campo section of Sao Paulo, Brazil. An arrest warrant was issued on Thursday for da Silva to serve a 12-year jail term for corruption. (Victor Moriyama/Getty Images)

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), its top court, reversed the conviction to allow Lula to run for president again last year. Most STF appointees received their positions under Lula or his successor, leftist former President Dilma Rousseff.

While Bolsonaro limited his rhetoric on Tuesday, Lula did not. Speaking to laborers in front of a Volkswagen factory in Sao Paulo, Lula repeatedly attacked Bolsonaro’s faith.

“You don’t have love, [didn’t shed] a single tear for the 680,000 people who died of [Chinese coronavirus],” Lula said during his speech, addressing Bolsonaro. “You never cared how many children were orphaned because you’re a denialist. You don’t believe in science. You don’t believe in medicine. You don’t believe in the governors. You didn’t believe in medicine. You believed in your lie.”

“If anyone is possessed by the devil, it’s this Bolsonaro,” Lula shouted.

The former president accused Bolsonaro of being a “Pharisee” and “trying to manipulate the good faith of Evangelical men and women who go to church to talk about their faith.”

Brazilians will go to the polls on October 2. If no candidate receives upwards of 50 percent of the vote, a runoff election will be scheduled between the top two candidates.

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