Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was admitted to a military hospital in Brasilia on Monday (March 28) for examinations after becoming unwell as a result of the stabbing he suffered in 2018 during his election campaign, according to one of his sons, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.

"The consequences of the attempted homicide (...) continue to cause health problems for my father", tweeted Flavio Bolsonaro.

"But evil has never won and will never win over good," he added, asking for prayers for his father.

A reference to good and evil already used the day before by Jair Bolsonaro during a meeting in Brasilia.

"Our enemy is not outside, he is inside. It's not a fight between right and left, it's a fight between good and evil and we're going to win," said the Brazilian president. his supporters who often wore a "Bolsonaro 2022" t-shirt even though the campaign is only due to start on August 16.

>> To see: Brazil: Bolsonaro wants to remain 'neutral' on the war in Ukraine

67-year-old Jair Bolsonaro was absent Monday evening from a ceremony organized by the Republican Party, one of the parties that supports him, for which his presence had been announced.

"I'm sure the president is fine, we're just giving him some tests, that's why he's not here," party chairman MP Marcos Pereira said.

According to the G1 news site, first lady Michelle Bolsonaro was present at the ceremony and said her husband "is doing well".

Communication Minister Fabio Faria, for his part, spoke of a "malaise".

Petrobras boss sacked

Since the stabbing attack he suffered in September 2018, in the midst of the presidential election campaign, Jair Bolsonaro has suffered a succession of abdominal alerts.

Stabbed in the gut by an apparently unbalanced individual during a walkabout, he narrowly escaped death.

The aftermath of this attack, which led to him having four abdominal operations, marred his tenure.

Jair Bolsonaro was hospitalized for four days in July 2021 and then two days last January for intestinal obstructions from which he recovered without the need for surgery.

Surgeon Antonio Luiz Macedo, who has operated on him several times since the attack, recalled in an interview with the newspaper O Globo in January that "the risk of a new obstruction" was "considerable" if he did not follow. its recommendations.

During his tenure, which began in 2019, the far-right president also underwent surgery for a kidney stone, and contracted Covid-19 with mild symptoms in July 2020.

In addition to his health problems, Jair Bolsonaro is approaching his last six months in office in a delicate position, with a low popularity rating and polls giving him largely beaten in the October ballot by the left-wing ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The economic context in Brazil is also worrying, with galloping inflation and hardly optimistic growth forecasts for 2022. Jair Bolsonaro also dismissed on Monday the president of the public oil group Petrobras, Joaquim Silva e Luna, in the crosshairs of the government for have sharply increased fuel prices seven months before the elections.

With AFP

The summary of the

France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 app

google-play-badge_EN