President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) said this Wednesday (12) that he will not participate in the inauguration of the new president of Chile, Gabriel Boric. The power transmission acts are scheduled for March 11.
“I won’t go into details, because I’m not one to create problems in international relations. Brazil is doing very well with the whole world. [Boric]. I won’t go, see who goes,” Bolsonaro said during an interview with the website Gazeta Brasil.
He also compared the situation with the dinner held in São Paulo by the Prerogativas group in December. The event was attended by former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), Bolsonaro’s main opponent in the 2022 elections, and former governor Geraldo Alckmin, who may be PT’s deputy.
“It’s just like that dinner in São Paulo, the democracy dinner sponsored by Lula and Alckmin. Look at those people who were there.
Leader of the 2011 student protests, left-wing leader Boric was elected president of Chile in December, after defeating the ultra-rightist José Antonio Kast, a candidate of appreciation for Bolsonarism.
Bolsonaro only congratulated Boric on the victory four days later after the result was announced. In a live on social media, he referred to the Chilean as the “Boric guy” and said that he had determined that Itamaraty would formally greet the winner. Earlier that evening, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a note congratulating the new president.
On Tuesday (11), the leaf showed that the Bolsonaro government does not intend to send any representatives to the inauguration of leftist Xiomara Castro in Honduras at the end of the month. She was elected president of the Central American country in November. In this way, the country’s presence in the acts in Tegucigalpa should only be formal, limited to the ambassador, Breno da Costa.
Interlocutors heard by leaf highlight that the case of Chile is different. It is one of the most important countries in South America, destination last year of almost US$ 7 billion in Brazilian exports. The expectation among allies is that Bolsonaro appoints at least his vice president, Hamilton Mourão (PRTB), to honor the inauguration of the new Chilean president.
Bolsonaro has a history of ignoring presidential inaugurations of leftist presidents in the region.
In November 2020, at the inauguration ceremony of Luis Arce in Bolivia, Brazil was represented only by the ambassador in La Paz, Octávio Côrtes.
There were also frictions with Brazil’s main trading partner on the continent. In December 2019, after threatening not to dispatch an emissary or to be represented by the then Minister of Citizenship, Osmar Terra, the president chose Mourão to attend the inauguration of Alberto Fernández in Argentina.
In both the Bolivian and Argentine cases, the Itamaraty was commanded by Ernesto Araújo, one of the main exponents of the government’s ideological wing. The substitute, Carlos França, acted to get Brazil to send representatives to the inauguration in Peru of Pedro Castillo, also from the left. At the time, he accompanied Mourão in the delegation.
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