Jair Bolsonaro wrecked Brazil’s presidential palace, TV report suggests

Jair Bolsonaro's wrecking of the Amazon made him a global outcast - but his acts of desecration were not limited to the rainforest.

A report by the Brazilian broadcaster GloboNews suggests that even the official presidential residence - a 1950s masterpiece by the architect Oscar Niemeyer - was defiled by the far-right politician during his four years in power.

Photographs of the rundown palace more resembled images of dilapidated student accommodation than a listed building designed by one of the world's most celebrated modernist architects.

A tapestry by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, one of Brazil's most celebrated 20th-century artists, had been damaged after being moved from the library and hung in the sun. "Unfortunately, it will have to be restored," the first lady said.

Nery said several works of art had disappeared altogether from the palace, which was completed in 1958, two years before Brazil's purpose-built capital was inaugurated by the then president, Juscelino Kubitschek.

Bolsonaro, who abandoned Brasilia on the eve of Lula's swearing-in last Sunday, looks unlikely to return soon. He is in Florida, and reportedly fears prosecution for alleged crimes including his anti-scientific response to a Covid pandemic that killed nearly 700,000 people in his country.