Bolsonaro admitted to hospital in the U.S., reports say

Jair Bolsonaro. Photo: Alan Santos/PR

Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has reportedly been admitted to hospital with severe abdominal pain, one day after thousands of his radical supporters stormed government buildings in Brasília.

According to reports by O Globo columnist Lauro Jardim, Mr. Bolsonaro is receiving care at the AdventHealth Celebration hospital on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida. The former president traveled to the U.S. on December 30 to avoid handing over the presidential sash to his successor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during the January 1 inauguration ceremony.

Following the internationally condemned attack on Brazil’s congress, supreme court, and presidential palace by his extremist supporters on Sunday, Mr. Bolsonaro issued a lukewarm condemnation on Twitter, saying that peaceful demonstrations are a part of democracy but that the destruction of public property crosses a line. He also repudiated accusations that he somehow incited the violence.

The former president’s relentless attacks on Brazil’s electronic voting system, and refusal to recognize outright Lula’s victory in the October presidential elections, are widely understood to have fueled the anger and conspiracy theories of the hardcore Bolsonarists behind yesterday’s riots.

U.S. Democrat representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez yesterday called for the U.S. to stop “granting refuge” to Mr. Bolsonaro, while Brazil’s Senator Renan Calheiros, from the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement, has filed a petition with the Supreme Court for the former president to be included in investigations into Sunday’s anti-democratic events and extradited from the U.S., should he fail to return to Brazil of his own accord.

Since being stabbed on the campaign trail in September 2018, Mr. Bolsonaro has been admitted to hospital on a number of occasions to be treated for abdominal pain. These bouts of ill health often seem to be triggered by uncomfortable situations, giving him an excuse to recede from the public stage just as he faces scrutiny.