Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro lost the presidential elections to social democrat Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva by the thinnest margin the South American country has ever seen. 

The announcement of the next president of Brazil comes months after the two launched campaigns to lure undecided voters to their side. However, as the days creeped closer to election day, both campaigns took a nasty turn as they resorted to almost mudslinging with Bolsonaro being called a cannibal while Silva was accused of having made a pact with the devil.

Silva won the election with 55.1% of the vote with Bolsonaro becoming the first Brazilian president to have not won a reelection bid in thirty years. 

Both domestically and internationally, the far-right former military captain has been widely criticized for his off the cuff remarks which have often ranged from sexist to authoritarian to outright homophobic. In that regard, Bolsonaro is no stranger. 

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Here are some of the most outrageous things that Bolsonaro has said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic

As Brazil struggled financially and from the COVID-19 pandemic, Bolsonaro made a speech on tourism where he downplayed the effects of the virus while casually making a homophobic remark. 

“I regret the deaths. I really do. But we’re all going to die someday. There’s no use fleeing reality. We have to stop being a country of f**s…. We have to face up to it and fight. I hate this f****t stuff.”

2011 interview with Playboy

Keeping with his standard of saying outrageous things, Bolsonaro made a homophobic remark about gay men saying that he would be incapable of loving his son if they were gay and he’d prefer a dead child over a gay one. 

He said, “I would be incapable of loving a homosexual child. I’d rather have a son of mine die in an accident than appear with a mustache next to him.”

Rape accusations

After being called a rapist by Worker’s Party member Maria do Rosario in 2014, the far-right former president said that he wouldn’t rape her because she didn’t “deserve it.” Doubling down on what he meant, Bolsonaro clarified, “She does not deserve to be raped because she is very bad, because she is very ugly.”

On disparate pay

Bolsonaro said in 2015 that he believed women should be paid less because “they get pregnant” qualifying his opinion with the justification that because they get maternity leave, she will get “another month’s vacation, meaning she worked five months that year. “

In favour of torture

In an interview on TV in 1999, Bolsonaro said that he was in favour of torturing people because nothing in the country would get done via voting. He added that civil war was the way to fix things in Brazil and that while “some innocent would die, it’s OK.”