Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s lawmaker son Eduardo, once considered for the post of ambassador to the United States, was suspended by his party on Tuesday and could lose the chair of the lower house’s foreign affairs committee.
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The conservative Social Liberal Party (PSL) suspended Eduardo Bolsonaro for one year for trying to oust its founder Luciano Bivar last month in a battle for control of the party that led to President Bolsonaro leaving to start his own party.
The split has left the far-right president without a formal base in Congress for which to push through his agenda of bills aimed at reducing the size of government, fighting graft, loosening gun laws and asserting Christian family values.
The small PSL party surged from nowhere to become the second largest in Brazil’s Congress by serving as the platform for Bolsonaro’s successful presidential run last year riding on a wave of conservative sentiment in the country.
The party said it punished 18 members for siding with the Bolsonaros in a bitter struggle for control of the party and its large election campaign war chest lost by the president.
The PSL will seek to have Eduardo Bolsonaro removed as chairman of the foreign relations committee arguing that the position was assigned to the party according to its number of seats.