Shortly before Lula's inauguration in Brazil, Bolsonaro greeted supporters in Orlando

BRASILIA.- While his country was no longer president and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was preparing to assume his third term, Jair Bolsonaro left the house where he is staying in Orlando, in the United States, to greet and sign autographs with followers in that Florida city.

One of his advisers, Max Guilherme, broadcast the images on social networks, in a totally different reality from the one lived in Brasilia, where Bolsonaro's absence to hand over the presidential sash to his successor was notorious.

Accompanied by security guards and wearing the Sport Club do Recife jersey, Bolsonaro handed out autographs and took photos, but made no statements. Yesterday, the former president had already served Brazilian neighbors in the area where he is staying.

In addition to him, the first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, and the couple's 12-year-old daughter, Laura, are staying at the mansion of former MMA fighter José Aldo.

According to the Folha newspaper, Bolsonaro came out twice this Sunday to greet his supporters: around 10 a.m. and at noon local time. That is, at 12 and 14 in Brazil. Lula's inauguration ceremony began at 3:00 p.m.

As far as is known, Bolsonaro only left the mansion where he has been staying once since he arrived: on Saturday he went to eat fried chicken at a KFC store. He spent New Year's Eve in that house with her family, according to her collaborators.

Today will be the first time since 1985 that an outgoing president has not handed over the presidential sash to his successor. That year, the last president of the last military dictatorship, General Joao Figueiredo, refused to participate in the inauguration ceremony of José Sarney, who received the sash from a Planalto official, according to O Globo period reports.

"The transition ritual is symbolic, there is no specific rule or punishment for a president who does not want to attend," despite the importance of the gesture to "strengthen democracy," explained Oliver Stuenkel, professor of International Relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

Bolsonaro traveled to the United States on Friday on a Brazilian Air Force plane accompanied by the first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, advisers and security personnel.

The far-right, who remained practically silent since the electoral defeat suffered in the ballotage on October 30, said goodbye to his followers on social networks before leaving the country, in a speech in which he was moved to tears.

"Some must be criticizing me, saying that I could have done this or that (...) I cannot do something that is not well done, without the side effects being too harmful," justified the president.

With his eyes full of tears, he said that in his four years in government he gave "the best of himself." Despite defending the protesters, he criticized an attempted attack with an explosive in the surroundings of the Brasilia airport by a follower of his last week. "Nothing justifies this attempted terrorist act," he stressed.

That and other acts of vandalism carried out by Bolsonarista followers in December in the capital forced to reinforce the security of Lula's inauguration.

As thousands of people gathered in Brasilia to celebrate the start of Lula's new term, one of the former president's sons, congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, published an image of the crowd with a sarcastic comment: "For those who say that communism does not exist: look for a Brazilian flag there”. It is that red predominates in the image, the color that characterizes the PT, while Bolsonaro made the colors of the flag, green and yellow, his own.

AFP Agency and O Globo newspaper (GDA)

- While his country was no longer president and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was preparing to assume his third term, Jair Bolsonaro left the house where he is staying in Orlando, in the United States, to greet and sign autographs with followers in that Florida city.