After saying goodbye to his followers in a live broadcast on his social networks, although without mentioning the trip, Bolsonaro embarked for Florida on an air force plane around 2:00 p.m. (17:00 GMT), reported O Globo, CNN Brazil, Estado and the news portal UOL.
“I’m in flight, I’ll be back soon”, the president told CNN Brazil, according to the channel itself.
The far right Thus, he will be absent from the inauguration of the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva next Sunday.
The Presidency did not respond to AFP’s repeated questions about the trip.
A group of cars used by the presidency left shortly before 2:00 p.m. from Alvorada’s official residence in Brasilia, an AFP photographer verified, without being able to confirm that the president was traveling on board.
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The General Secretariat of the Presidency authorized the transfer abroad of a delegation of civil servants to give “security and personal support for the future former president of the Republic, Jair Messias Bolsonaro” on an international trip to “Miami, United States, to take place from January 1 to 30, 2023”, according to the official gazette this Friday.
It would be the first time since 1985 that an outgoing president decided not to hand over the presidential sash. to his successor. That year, the last president of the military dictatorship, General João Figueiredo, refused to participate in the inauguration ceremony of José Sarney, who received the sash from a Planalto official, according to reports from the newspaper O Balloon.
The entrance Bolsonaro leaves Brazil for the US two days before the end of his term was first published on newspaper TODAY.
