It didn’t happen, in part, according to the president, because Jair Bolsonaro was a ‘coward’ who preferred to ‘flee to the United States.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Monday (18) during a ministerial meeting at the Palácio do Planalto that Brazil was at “serious risk” of undergoing a coup d’état.

He stated that this did not happen, in part, because his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, was a “coward” who preferred to “flee to the United States rather than do what he had promised.”

During his speech, Lula asserted that the “previous government never cared about governing the country” and that former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is under investigation by the Federal Police (PF) for attempting a coup d’état, “was focused on fueling hatred in this country.”

He also countered accusations that the legal proceedings against Bolsonaro and his associates, which are under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), are undemocratic.

“Today we have clarity from testimonies of people who were part of his government or who were in command of the Armed Forces and were invited to carry out the coup.

Today we are certain that this country was at serious risk of undergoing a coup because of the 2022 elections,” said Lula.

“There was no coup not only because some people who were in command of the Armed Forces didn’t want to go through with it. But also because the president was a coward.

He stayed at home crying for almost a month and preferred to flee to the US rather than fulfill what he had promised, hoping that outside the country the coup could happen because they financed people in the barracks to encourage the continuation of the coup.

Since it didn’t work out, now they are saying that we are undermining democracy.

According to Lula, “we narrowly avoided returning to dark times in this country, where, with the participation of some military personnel, they could have gained power.”

The president called a ministerial meeting for this Monday with the aim of changing the agenda and reversing the decline in popularity. The meeting with the ministers comes in the wake of a series of polls revealing a drop in government approval ratings and pressuring a response from the former president