Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Jair Bolsonaro’s medical condition has worsened, nearly two weeks after the former Brazilian president was admitted to the hospital for intestinal problems, according to the latest bulletin from his clinic.
The former army captain, who is facing trial over an alleged coup plot in 2022, has suffered recurring health difficulties since a man stabbed him in the abdomen and nearly killed him during his victorious election campaign in 2018.
The hard-right politician was admitted to the DF Star hospital in Brasília on April 11 and was operated on two days later for an intestinal obstruction. It is the sixth time he has had surgery since the stabbing, and doctors said the latest operation was the most complex he has had to undergo.
A hospital bulletin released on Thursday said Bolsonaro, 70, “showed a clinical deterioration, higher blood pressure, and a worsening of liver laboratory examinations.” It recommended he not receive visitors, apart from his family, and said no date had been set for him to leave intensive care.
The former president is being fed through an intravenous tube but is conscious and has received family visitors.
He faces trial before Brazil’s supreme court over allegations he plotted a coup after losing the 2022 election.
A court representative formally notified Bolsonaro on Wednesday that he had five days to present his defense arguments, a move criticized by the former president and some of his supporters.
“He thinks that by arresting me or removing me from public life, it’s over, that everything in Brazil is sorted out. And it’s not like that,” Bolsonaro said.
The court said it had acted after Bolsonaro filmed a live social media broadcast with his sons from his hospital bed on Tuesday, which it said showed he was in a condition to be notified.
Despite his impending trial, Bolsonaro remains the pre-eminent leader of Brazil’s conservatives. He insists he wants to contest next year’s presidential election, in which leftwing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says he wants to seek a fourth term.
The right-winger, however, was barred from running for public office for eight years in 2023, after the top electoral court found he had committed campaign offenses, including casting doubts on the integrity of the electronic voting system.
Prosecutors say this formed part of a broader plot to subvert democracy and, following Bolsonaro’s narrow defeat at the ballot box, to overturn the result through force.
Bolsonaro claims to be the victim of political persecution while his supporters say they are being unfairly targeted by the supreme court.
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, he called for help from abroad to prevent his country from sliding into what he called a Venezuela-style dictatorship of the left.
Along with other defendants, including top military figures, Bolsonaro is accused of a conspiracy that, towards the end of 2022, involved plans to assassinate Lula, his vice-president, and a supreme court judge. The former president denies the charges.
