President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) said this Tuesday (30) that he did not fail to speak the truth about his Chilean counterpart Gabriel Boric in debate last Sunday (28). Accusations made by the Brazilian made Santiago summon the Brazilian ambassador.
“The president of Chile has now started calling the ambassador, a way he has to show his dissatisfaction with me. Whether I exaggerated or not, I did not fail to speak the truth,” he said. “The Constituent Assembly of Chile goes against what any democratic country wants. Is this their problem? It’s their problem, but the citizen there had the support of a guy here in Brazil.”
Bolsonaro’s main opponent in the October election, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), expressed support for Boric in the Chilean election — while the current president endorsed the candidacy of the ultra-rightist José Antonio Kast. Chile will hold a referendum next Sunday (4th) on the proposed new Constitution.
Bolsonaro participated this Tuesday in an event held by the Instituto Nacional de Entidades do Comércio e Serviços (Unecs), in Brasília.
The day before, the Chilean government had summoned the representative of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry to provide clarification. This measure, in diplomatic circles, is a way of expressing displeasure of a government with some action by another country – in this case, with Bolsonaro’s statements during a debate between presidential candidates, when he tried to attack Lula.
“Lula also supported the president of Chile, the same one who practiced acts of setting fire to subways there in Chile. Where is our Chile going?”, said Bolsonaro, in the closing statements of the debate organized by Sheet, UOL and TVs Bandeirantes and Cultura. In the speech, he also criticized other leftist leaders in the region — recent electoral victories in that camp have increased its regional isolation.
With origins in student politics, Boric participated in the 2011 protests for the free higher education system and was elected deputy for the first time in 2014. In another wave of protests, in 2019 — in which public transport in the Chilean capital was vandalized, as quoted by Bolsonaro—, the current president of Chile was not part of the movement, as the Brazilian president wanted to imply.
He, however, supported the protesters’ claims and was one of the leaders responsible for the agreement that opened the door to the Constituent plebiscite.
“[As acusações de Bolsonaro] are absolutely false. The political use of the bilateral relationship for electoral purposes, based on lies, misinformation and misrepresentation, erodes not only the bond between our countries but also democracy,” Chilean Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola said on Monday (29).
In a note in which it reinforced that Boric has already publicly expressed differences with his counterpart but defends the importance of the relationship between the two nations, the Chilean chancellery highlighted that Bolsonaro’s statements were unacceptable. “They are not in keeping with the respectful treatment that should exist between heads of state nor with fraternal relations between the two Latin American countries.”
In his re-election campaign, Bolsonaro has repeatedly criticized leftist governments in the region, often pointing out economic problems. The attempt is to target Lula, who leads polls for voting intentions and maintains proximity to the leaders attacked by Bolsonaro.
In the final statement of Sunday’s debate, the president began his speech by criticizing the dictatorship in Venezuela and the current Argentine president, Alberto Fernández. “Look where the economy of our Argentina is going.” Finally, after accusing Boric, he extended his criticism to the Colombian Gustavo Petro, whom he accused of wanting to “release drugs and release prisoners” —he took over promising a change in the paradigm of the war on drug trafficking—, and to Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega, mentioning the religious persecution promoted by the dictatorship.
