The voted-out Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro apparently left the Head of State’s official residence in Brasília in the worst possible condition: The new First Lady Rosangela “Janja” da Silva led reporters from TV Globo through the Alvorada Palace on Friday to review its constitution after the Show excerpt of previous occupant.
Parts of the famous building were “run down,” said the wife of the new President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during the tour, pointing to ragged carpets, broken floors, broken windows and water damage to a ceiling. A huge banquet hall filmed by the TV crew was completely empty, with all furnishings apparently removed.
An unknown number of pieces of furniture and works of art from the presidential residence are missing, said Rosangela da Silva. Other furnishings were damaged, and a 19th-century painting was simply lying on the floor. In the historical library, on the other hand, where Bolsonaro gave weekly video speeches during his term of office, which ended at the turn of the year, electronic equipment lay scattered about.
Da Silva announced that she and her husband would first renovate the presidential palace and have the damage repaired. Only after a complete inventory of the inventory did they want to move into the residence. The plan is to put the pieces of furniture and works of art on the list of national heritage “so that it cannot happen again that a president takes historical objects that belong to the Brazilian state”.
