Joice Hasselmann to Vote for Lula, Accuses Jair Bolsonaro of Ordering Attack on Her
Brazil's former lawmaker Joice Hasselmann says Jair Bolsonaro ordered an attack on her in 2021. Police at the time concluded she had suffered a fall.
By Marcel
Automatically translated from German · may contain errors · Read the original
Former Brazilian lawmaker Joice Hasselmann says she will vote for President Lula in the presidential runoff on Sunday, October 25. In an interview with the pro-Lula news site Brasil 247, she also accused former President Jair Bolsonaro of having ordered an attack on her in 2021. The site announced the conversation for its channel TV 247 on Thursday, October 22.
Lula's challenger is Flávio Bolsonaro, a son of the former president. Hasselmann said her decision was based on defending democracy against what she called an "authoritarian power project" of the Bolsonaro family. She said, in essence, that one can lose an election, but not democracy. Despite differences with Lula's Workers' Party (PT), she said she would vote that way: "I'm voting for Lula, no beating around the bush."
Hasselmann, who is active as a commentator on X, also weighed in there. Her statements are drawing approval from the left, but also sharp criticism and doubts.
As we reported on October 19, Flávio Bolsonaro had attacked Lula over votes from prisoners a week before the runoff. In his counterattack against Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula then called on former President Jair Bolsonaro to vote for him.
From the Bolsonaro camp to critic
Before her political career, Hasselmann worked as a journalist and presenter, hosting the show "Os Pingos nos Is" on the network Jovem Pan, among other things. In 2018, she won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies for the PSL party from the state of São Paulo with 1,078,666 votes, making her the woman with the most votes in Brazilian history. Under Bolsonaro, she briefly served as the government's spokeswoman in Congress and as PSL floor leader.
She broke with Bolsonaro and his family as early as 2019/2020. She accuses the "clan" of corruption, authoritarian tendencies and personal attacks. Hasselmann recently called presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro a "criminal of the worst kind." She later switched to the PSDB and most recently to Podemos. In 2020, she lost her bid for mayor of São Paulo; in 2022, she received only about 13,700 votes and left parliament.
Hasselmann speaks of an attack, police of a fall
In the conversation with Brasil 247, Hasselmann described an incident in her apartment in Brasília in 2021. She suffered fractures to her face, a rib and her spine, among other injuries. She describes it as a targeted attack: she says people wanted to beat her up and leave her paralyzed from the waist down. Jair Bolsonaro ordered the attack, she said. She links the incident to her break with the family.
Hasselmann also said she had seen a draft for a coup as early as 2019 and reported it to Dias Toffoli, then president of the Supreme Federal Court (STF).
The Civil Police of the Federal District closed the case in August 2021. It concluded that she had fallen from standing height, possibly under the influence of sleeping pills, and ruled out the involvement of third parties. Hasselmann's allegations cannot be independently verified.