Brazil’s Bolsonaro to give campaign surplus to hospital

Jair Bolsonaro, far-right lawmaker and presidential candidate for the Social Liberal Party (PSL), waves to supporters, during the second round of the presidential elections, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on October 28, 2018. – Brazilians will choose their president today during the second round of the national elections between the far-right firebrand Jair Bolsonaro and leftist Fernando Haddad (Photo by MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP)

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro said Tuesday he would give more than $400,000 in leftover campaign funds to the hospital that treated him after he was stabbed in the abdomen at a rally.

The former army captain, who won Sunday’s election with 55 percent of the vote, said his campaign had cost about 1.5 million reals, or $400,000.

But that was “less than half the funds that were raised through donations from private citizens,” he said on Twitter.

“I plan to donate the rest to the Santa Casa de Juiz de Fora hospital, where I was born again.”

Bolsonaro, 63, was campaigning in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais on September 6 when an attacker stabbed him, perforating his intestines in several places.

He was treated in the hospital’s emergency room, before being transported the next day to another facility in Sao Paulo.

He was released after three weeks of treatment, and continued his convalescence at home in Rio de Janeiro.

The incident nearly cost Bolsonaro his life, but did not stop him from keeping up an aggressive, vitriolic campaign on social media.

© Agence France-Presse