After saying that he would not participate in the inauguration of Gabriel Boric, President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) selected his deputy, Hamilton Mourão (PRTB), to represent the government at the inauguration ceremonies of the left-wing leader in Chile. The acts are scheduled for March 11, in Santiago.
On January 12, Bolsonaro had said that he would not attend the inauguration of the Chilean, who defeated an ultra-right candidate who had the support of Bolsonarism, José Antonio Kast, in the elections.
“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. You see who goes to the inauguration of the new president of Chile [Boric]. I will not go, see who will,” the president said at the time.
With the decision, the Brazilian maintains a behavior he adopted in the past, of absent from inaugural ceremonies of left-wing leaders in Latin America.
On two occasions, in fact, in Bolivia and Honduras, the Bolsonaro government did not even send a representative to the inaugurations of Luis Arce and Xiomara Castro, respectively. In diplomatic language, this is considered a gesture to mark political distance.
In the case of the Bolivian president, the decision to reduce Brazilian representation to the ambassador in La Paz took place during the administration of former minister Ernesto Araújo, who promoted an ideological shift at Itamaraty.
The message to the new Xiomara administration came after the Honduran invited former presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, both from the PT, to the ceremonies. Of the two, only Dilma traveled to Tegucigalpa.
The assessment at Itamaraty, now headed by Carlos França, is that it is not possible to give similar treatment to Chile, one of the main economies in South America and which maintains a billionaire trade flow with Brazil. In 2021, exports to Santiago totaled more than US$7 billion. Imports, in turn, reached US$ 4.4 billion.
Still in his first year in office, Bolsonaro missed the inauguration of Alberto Fernández in Argentina. The president even threatened to send only the then Minister of Citizenship, Osmar Terra, but, under pressure, ended up choosing Mourão to travel to Buenos Aires.
In July last year, the vice president also headed the delegation that went to Lima for the inauguration ceremonies of leftist leader Pedro Castillo – who, by the way, met with Bolsonaro this Thursday (3) in Porto Velho.
Bolsonaro took part in the inaugurations of right-wing leaders, however: in March 2020, the president went to Montevideo to honor Luis Lacalle Pou in Uruguay and, in May of last year, to Quito, Ecuador, at the inaugural ceremony of Guillermo Lasso.
Source: Folha
