“My commitment has always been to welcome and serve as best as possible all those who flee dictatorships in the world,” added the Brazilian head of state, who will dispute the presidential ballot against Lula on October 30.
The controversy erupted on Friday, when Bolsonaro told, during an interview with influencers on YouTube, an anecdote that dates back to April 2021, in a poor neighborhood in Brasilia.
“I stopped the motorcycle on a corner, I took off my helmet, I looked at some girls, three or four, pretty, 14, 15 years old, dressed up, one Saturday in a community. A climate was generated, I came back. ‘Can I go into your house?’ I entered,” Bolsonaro said.
In the house “there were about 15, 20 girls (…) all Venezuelans. And I wonder, girls, all pretty, 14, 15 years old, getting ready, on a Saturday, what for? To earn a living,” he added. the far-right president.
In particular, the phrase “a climate was generated”, which in Brazil has sexual connotations, caused controversy, and videos of that part of the interview with the hashtag #Bolsonaropedophile went viral on the networks.
Lula da Silva before the second round
Lula da Silva met this Wednesday with evangelicals to assure them that he will defend freedom of worship and that he is against abortion, in an attempt to win over voters in a segment where his rival, Jair Bolsonaro, is a wide favorite, 11 days before the ballot. .