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Three months after leaving for the United States in the final hours of his term, Brazil's ex-president Jair Bolsonaro is returning home Thursday to reenter politics -- complicating life for his successor and nemesis, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The far-right ex-army captain, who skipped town two days before Lula's inauguration on January 1, is due to arrive back in Brasilia on a commercial flight from Orlando, Florida at 7:10 am (1010 GMT).
It is a high-stakes bet for the former president, who is facing legal trouble on various fronts in Brazil -- notably for his alleged role in inciting supporters who rioted through the halls of power on January 8 in a failed bid to oust Lula, the veteran leftist who beat him in a divisive election in October.
It threatens to be a tense day in Brasilia, where authorities vowed to block supporters from holding a huge welcome rally at the airport.
Bolsonaro, 68, is set to start a new job next week as honorary president of his Liberal Party (PL), earning 41,600 reais (around $8,000) a month.
The ex-president (2019-2022), who recently rented a house in a gated community in Brasilia, has said he plans to criss-cross Brazil "doing politics" and "upholding the banner of conservatism."
But "I'm not going to lead any opposition," Bolsonaro told CNN Brasil as he prepared to board his flight.
"I'm going to participate with my party as someone with experience."
Return of 'the face of the right'
Authorities in Brasilia urged Bolsonaro supporters not to rally at the airport, saying police would be out in force to keep traffic flowing smoothly.
The Liberal Party appeared ready to keep the arrival low-key, saying Bolsonaro would travel from the airport to party headquarters, where his wife, Michelle, party president Valdemar Costa Neto and "other authorities" would be waiting to greet him in a closed-door event.
But hardline Bolsonaro backers have plans of their own.
There are viral calls on social media for supporters to flood the airport to welcome the man they call "Messiah" -- or "Messias," Bolsonaro's middle name.
Some supporters are planning to hold one of the ex-president's trademark motorcycle rallies, vowing: "Brasilia will come to a halt."
"Let's pave the way for Bolsonaro's return to the presidency," YouTube star-turned-Congressman Gustavo Gayer said in a video, calling for a massive turnout.
"Bolsonaro is the face of the right in Brazil," supporter Cassia Christina told AFP in Rio de Janeiro.
"His name revived the right wing and patriotism in this country," said the 32-year-old vendor.
The homecoming could reenergize the opposition, which has been weakened by Bolsonaro's self-imposed exile and the widespread backlash to the violence and destruction of the January 8 riots, when supporters trashed the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court.
"We've had five months of a basically dismantled opposition. Now, Bolsonaro's return to Brazil looks set to unite the right," political analyst Jairo Nicolau of the Getulio Vargas Foundation told AFP.
"That could make a big difference. Lula will have to govern with a united opposition."
Legal trouble
But Bolsonaro faces numerous legal woes.
They include no less than five Supreme Court investigations that could potentially send him to jail -- including for allegedly inciting the January 8 riots -- and a recent scandal over allegations he tried to illegally import and keep millions of dollars' worth of jewelry given to him and his wife by Saudi Arabia in 2019.
Police summoned Bolsonaro Wednesday to give a deposition in the Saudi jewels case on April 5, officials told AFP.
He also faces 16 cases before Brazil's Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which could strip him of his right to run for office for eight years, taking him out of the 2026 presidential race.
Bolsonaro has admitted he could face trouble.
Assessing his odds at a meeting with Brazilian business leaders in the United States earlier this month, he acknowledged he could be declared ineligible to run for office.
"But they won't send me to prison, unless there's some kind of arbitrary decision," he said.
(AFP)
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Cult film director Quentin Tarantino said on Wednesday he has finished the script for what will be his "last" movie.
The US director of hit films including "Kill Bill", "Inglourious Basterds" and "Pulp Fiction" said he expected shooting to start on his 10th film later in the year.
"I have finished the script of what will end up being my last movie," the 60-year-old said while being questioned by Thierry Fremaux, director of the Cannes Film Festival, at the launch of his new book in Paris.
"I imagine we'll probably shoot it I guess in the fall," Tarantino said.
Tarantino has repeatedly said that he wants to retire after 10 films -- counting the two lengthy episodes of "Kill Bill" as one.
The film, which will be called "The Movie Critic", will be set in 1977, he added.
He denied rumors that it was a biopic of Pauline Kael -- the New Yorker film critic who died in 2001 -- and said it was not devoted to any specific film critic.
Tarantino's directorial debut came with "Reservoir Dogs" in 1992, a low-budget, brutal crime caper that became a cult smash and turned him into one of the industry's most influential filmmakers.
© 2023 AFP
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It is still almost 300 days until the first ballot is cast but the fog is already lifting in the battle for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination -- leaving two men standing.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has emerged as the only genuine threat so far to frontrunner Donald Trump, with the primary contest narrowing to a bitter head-to-head over character and the ability to win elections.
A number of lower-profile hopefuls have been bystanders as the 76-year-old political brawler with a peerless aptitude for sniffing out weakness among his enemies has concentrated his fire on the young pretender, 32 years his junior.
Trump is making his third run for the White House after losing his re-election bid to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, while DeSantis, who is yet to officially announce his candidacy, is untested on the national stage.
The similarities are unmistakable -- from the populist style honed in their respective fiefdoms at opposite ends of Florida to their love of showmanship, culture wars and a good old-fashioned dust-up with the media.
But their success in persuading Republicans to give them a shot at the White House in 2024 may well turn on their ability to play to their differences.
The pair weren't always foes. Trump endorsed DeSantis in his first run for governor in 2018, before distancing himself from his protege after the 44-year-old's landslide re-election victory last year.
The combative governor's crusade against the "woke" left-wing ideology he sees as infecting schools and other public institutions has made him a major player in American conservatism and, in many respects, a Trump "mini-me."
- 'No daily drama' -
Meanwhile, the de facto Republican leader has been rolling out his rhetorical artillery, labeling DeSantis a "mediocre governor," scoffing at his claims to have kept Florida open during the pandemic and painting him as a threat to the welfare safety net.
The Florida governor responded with his most direct shots yet at his adversary, drawing a distinction between his own "no daily drama" leadership style and the stubborn whiff of scandal and constant chaos around Trump.
As with the stragglers among the Republican White House hopefuls, DeSantis has not diverged meaningfully from Trump's stated positions or governing record, reducing the contest to a question of style over substance.
"On a policy front, they're probably very similar. They share some of the same basic America First kind of policies," says Saul Anuzis, a political consultant and former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.
"But their style, their way of governance, that's where the big difference comes in."
DeSantis, the progeny of working-class parents, a war veteran and a Harvard and Yale graduate, is from different stock than the former president, heir to a real estate empire built up by his father.
"DeSantis seems to be less bombastic, more deliberate, while at the same time willing to take on the media," Anuzis notes.
"He is not afraid of a fight but he does it in a softer, kinder way."
Trump, on the other hand, is a "larger-than-life populist," according to Matthew Continetti, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute think tank and author of a history of the US conservative movement.
"He is someone whose personality overwhelms everything else," he said.
- 'Remarkably unpopular' -
For this expert, DeSantis has better odds than Trump for defeating the 2024 Democratic candidate, which will almost certainly be Biden.
"(Trump) is very popular among his base supporters, but two-thirds of the country don't want to see him (as) president again," Continetti says.
Another reason to think DeSantis might play better in the general election: he isn't facing criminal investigation in multiple jurisdictions and isn't seen as a one-man crime wave by much of Middle America -- the 30 percent of voters that decide elections.
Trump's controversies have not dampened his enthusiasm for swatting away rivals with puerile smears and DeSantis will be expected to hit back with alacrity.
But he will also need to contend with Trump's secret sauce -- the enormous leeway his supporters give him compared with the much higher standards to which other politicians are held.
The DeSantis campaign, for example, took a big hit from both parties when he downplayed Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine as a "territorial dispute" -- while Trump's nakedly pro-Putin rhetoric barely raises an eyebrow.
"I don't think there's any benefit for DeSantis or anybody to really attack Trump at this stage of the game," Azunis told AFP.
"DeSantis has set his own timetable," he added. "He has been very disciplined so far, and I think that discipline has served him well."
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