After saying, late on Saturday morning (22), that Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the mayor of São Paulo, Ricardo Nunes (MDB), stated on Monday night (24) that it is “difficult to understand” what led the former president to try to break his electronic ankle bracelet, which led to his arrest.
“It’s hard to understand what a person his age is going through [Bolsonaro tem 70 anos, e Nunes, 58]health problems. What I saw in the press, what you said, which reproduced his version, is that he was under the influence of medication”, he said. “It’s very difficult for us to comment on something if we weren’t there, at the time, to monitor it”, he added.
The mayor also said he considered that Bolsonaro was under “severe psychological tension and use of medication.” Nunes said he imagined “that it would be very difficult, emotionally, for you to go through a situation like that. Not that it justifies it. But that’s what I have in terms of information,” he concluded.
The mayor had echoed Bolsonaro’s arrest before showing the damage that Bolsonaro confessed to having caused. It was the first time that Nunes spoke after the video of the equipment emerged.
The alert that the monitoring device had broken was one of the factors that led STF (Supreme Federal Court) minister Alexandre de Moraes to order Bolsonaro’s arrest at the Federal Police, in Brasília, during the early hours of Saturday.
Nunes spoke to journalists during an event that brought together politicians and businesspeople at the Palácio Tangará hotel, in the south of the capital. Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) was expected at the event, which was on his agenda, but did not attend.
The mayor commented on the impacts of Bolsonaro’s arrest on next year’s electoral scenario, saying that, in 2026, he will not be a candidate and that he will support Tarcísio, whether in his re-election in São Paulo or for the Presidency.
“I think that [Tarcísio] is the best situation Brazil has and we cannot lose the capacity we have [ele] You have to manage, as a human being, as a sensitive person, who knows how to manage, who knows how to respect public accounts and carry out works and social work”, he said.
Nunes was tipped to succeed the governor in São Paulo, but, faced with a series of criticisms that his deputy, Colonel Mello Araújo (PL), an ally of Bolsonaro, has been making to the governor.
“[Em São Paulo]I think the natural tendency is Felício Ramuth. Obviously, you will have to sit down with other parties, we will have to talk to everyone”, he said.
At the event, the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite (PSD), who is also a pre-candidate for the Presidency, stated that the breakage of Bolsonaro’s electronic ankle bracelet justifies, from a legal point of view, his arrest.
“Now, from a political-institutional point of view, I cannot help but regret once again that we are living in a moment like this, the result of polarization,” he stated.
The governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema (Novo), once again expressed solidarity with Bolsonaro and highlighted that the right must launch more than one candidate for President.
“But we, right-wing governors, continue to believe in our project. I realize that the most likely path is that we will have some right-wing candidates, which is good, because we are well-evaluated governors,” he stated.
Zema also said that the release of the ankle bracelet video did not change his assessment of Bolsonaro’s arrest. He stated that, in his states, monitored prisoners who break the equipment take a long time to be arrested because of the delay in issuing arrest warrants. “In this case, it was much faster. Another sign that there is political persecution,” he said.
