Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is undergoing surgery on Sunday, his fifth since being stabbed in the stomach while campaigning in 2018, his medical team said in a statement.
The procedure started at 8:30 a.m. and is expected to last six hours.
Bolsonaro, 70, was hospitalized on Friday after feeling strong abdominal pain during an event with supporters in northeastern Brazil, forcing him to break off a regional tour aimed at drumming up political support. He was transferred to the nation’s capital, Brasilia, where he lives, on Saturday night.
Bolsonaro, a hard-right former army captain who served as president from 2019 to 2022, has been campaigning around Brazil for Congress to pass an amnesty bill for his supporters who stormed the capital after he lost the 2022 election.
In a message to allies before the surgery, the former president criticized the harsh punishment against a supporter who could be sentenced to 10 years in prison, and again called for Congress to pass the amnesty bill.
“May God enlighten each of the 513 representatives and 81 senators in their votes,” he wrote. “If with our decisions we pave our eternity, this vote carries a significant weight.”
Brazil’s Supreme Court decided last month to put Bolsonaro on trial for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the government after his 2022 electoral defeat. He has denied any wrongdoing and called the trial an example of left-wing “lawfare” targeting conservative leaders like himself and France’s Marine Le Pen.
Bolsonaro has already been banned from running for office until 2030 for discrediting the country’s voting system. If the Supreme Court finds him guilty, he could face a long prison sentence.
Still, the right-wing leader insists that he will run in next year’s presidential election, casting himself as the best candidate to confront leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose popularity has slipped amid high inflation.
(This story has been corrected to rectify the status of proceedings against the former president’s supporter in paragraph 5)
(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga and Ricardo Brito; Writing by Manuela Andreoni; Editing by Mark Porter)
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