Jair Bolsonaro takes Presidential Office of Brazil, says nation ‘liberated from socialism’
BRASILIA – Brazil’s newly elected President ‘Jair Bolsonaro’ said on Tuesday his election had freed the country from “socialism and political correctness”, and he promised to tackle corruption, crime and economic mismanagement in the eight largest economy in the world and Latin America’s largest nation.
Being a victim of a knife attack during the presidential campaign that left Bolsonaro hospitalized for weeks, security was tight for his inauguration event. Around 10,000 police officers and soldiers were deployed on the streets of Brasilia, the capital, as Bolsonaro and his wife rode in an open-topped Rolls-Royce to Congress.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain turned lawmaker and being a seven-term congressman who openly admires Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship, promised in his first remarks as president to adhere to democratic norms, after his diatribes against the political opponents and media had caused agitation.
Bolsonaro was swept to power in October by voters’ outrage with traditional political parties, making him Brazil’s first right-wing president since the dictatorship.
Voters punished mainstream parties following more than four years of graft investigations that laid bare the largest political corruption scheme ever discovered. Centrist parties were beaten, reshaping Brazil’s political landscape and polarizing Congress.
“This is the beginning of Brazil’s liberation from socialism, political correctness and a bloated state,” Bolsonaro, 63, said in an address to the nation made after he put on the ‘Presidential Sash’.
His voters are now impatient for Bolsonaro to fulfil his ambitious promises to tackle graft and violent crime and revive an economy still sputtering after the collapse of a commodities boom led to Brazil’s worst recession on record.
As thousands of supporters, many with the Brazilian flag draped around their shoulders, chanted “the captain has arrived!”, Bolsonaro launched into a fiery speech.
“We have the great challenge of taking on the effects of an economic crisis, of facing the distortion of human rights and the breakdown of the family,” he said. “We must urgently end ideologies that defend criminals and penalize police.”
While investors being hopeful that Bolsonaro’s free-market stance will revive Brazil’s economy – environmentalists and rights groups are worried he will roll back protections for the ‘Amazon Rain Forest’ and loosen gun controls in a country that already has the world’s highest number of killings.