Brazil’s far-right president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, has reaffirmed his defense of his country’s brutal 21-year dictatorship and rejected claims that he is a fascist, instead painting himself as a Churchillian patriot determined to lead his crisis-stricken country “out of this quagmire”.
In one of his first television interviews since being elected on Sunday with nearly 58 million votes, the former paratrooper, who is notorious for his inflammatory rhetoric, did little to suggest he would temper his discourse after taking power on 1 January.
Bolsonaro told TV Band, one of Brazil’s major channels, it was his leftwing detractors who were fascists, not him.
“They always accuse others of being what they are themselves,” he said. “It’s these leftwing people, who always put themselves above the rest, who are fascists.”
The veteran politician, who paints himself as a political outsider, also refused to say he regretted saying the military regime that ruled Brazil from 1964 until 1985 should have killed 30,000 people. In a now infamous 1999 television interview Bolsonaro also said: “You’ll never change anything in this country through voting. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Justifying those comments on Tuesday, he said: “If you’re at a football match and you shout out a swear word you might be in the wrong but you’re caught up in the atmosphere of the moment.”
Bolsonaro, who has expressed admiration for dictators including Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, claimed many Brazilians now believed Brazil’s military regime “wasn’t a dictatorship as the left has always preached”.
He said the media had unjustly described Cuba’s former leader, Fidel Castro, as a president while calling João Figueiredo, who ruled Brazil during the final years of its dictatorship, a dictator.
Hundreds of regime opponents were killed or disappeared during Brazil’s 21-year dictatorship while thousands more were tortured.
Bolsonaro’s numerous critics are appalled that a man with his track record of promoting torture and offending women, black, gay and indigenous people will soon be their leader. Leftwing opponents have vowed to resist what they call his threat to democracy and will hold their first protests since his victory on Tuesday afternoon, in the cities of São Paulo, Porto Alegre, Brasília, Recife, Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza.
In his television interview Bolsonaro – who recently threatened to exile or jail “red outlaws” – said he expected “fierce” opposition but would not seek “to crush” such dissent.
“I hope to be an example,” he said. “We are taking over a completely broken Brazil. We’ve never had such a major ethical, moral and economic crisis and we want to get out of this quagmire.”
Bolsonaro’s harshest critics have likened him to Adolf Hitler, but the far-right politician told TV Band he modelled himself on Winston Churchill.
In his first televised address after Sunday’s victory, Bolsonaro held up a Portuguese translation of Churchill’s Memoirs of the Second World War and said his government would be inspired by “great world leaders”.
Asked what lessons he had learned from Britain’s wartime leader, Bolsonaro said: “Patriotism, love for your fatherland, respect for your flag – something that has been lost over the last few years here in Brazil … and governing through example, especially at that difficult moment of the second world war.”
In an interview with the channel SBT, Bolsonaro emphasized he would not clamp down on his political foes. “Those who didn’t vote for me don’t need to worry – they won’t be persecuted,” he said.
However, in a third interview Brazil’s president-elect said he hoped to see the activities of groups including the Landless Worker’s Movement (MST) and the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST) classified as “terrorism”.
In an interview with the Guardian on Monday, the MTST leader, Guilherme Boulos, vowed to confront the “real risk” he said Bolsonaro represented to Brazilian democracy. “There will be resistance, there will be opposition, there will be street mobilisations. Our voices will not be silenced.”
