After Congress became the main focus of friction with former Chancellor Ernesto Araújo, parliamentarians celebrated the foreign minister’s departure on Monday (29) but signaled that they would keep up the pressure to avoid the appointment of an ideological name for the post.
Ernesto Araújo resigned on Monday after pressure from the congressional summit, which accused the former chancellor of failing to deal with the pandemic.
Now, lawmakers are hoping that the Chancellor’s replacement will be a name seen as non-ideological – the former minister was a declared admirer of the writer Olavo de Carvalho, the guru of Bolonarianism.
The leader of the largest bench in the Senate, Eduardo Braga (MDB-AM), says he awaits the official government demonstration confirming the departure of Ernesto Araújo, but adds that it will be important to choose a new one who takes up the principles of Brazil’s foreign relations.
“I think it is more important to know who will be the new chancellor than to comment on his departure. We need a Chancellor who can take our external relations a constructive path and make us overcome the problems related to vaccines, ”Braga told Folha.
“Regarding the ideological question, I think there is no place for these questions in international diplomacy. Ernesto doesn’t matter. The important thing is Brazil and not Ernesto. And I hope that Brazil is right to choose the new chancellor. “
The Senate has become one of the main sources of friction with Ernesto Araújo. The most recent episode, believed to be the trigger for the release, was a social media post by the former minister, in which the Senate linked to the Chinese lobby via 5G, which he said would be behind the pressure to overthrow the post.
Ernesto had previously been the target of strong claims, accusations of lack of capacity and resignations when he attended a Senate session on Wednesday last week. At the time, even government leaders in Congress did not come to his defense.
Ernesto’s departure therefore brought together members of the government and the opposition, in a movement rarely seen in Congress.
Leader of the PL in the Senate, a group supporting the government of President Jair Bolsonaro (without a party), Carlos Portinho (PL-RJ), celebrated the departure of the Chancellor.
“I thought it was great that he left. I was hardly impressed to hear it in the Senate. Bad oratory. I imagine in another language how it should be. You can see he was a terrible interlocutor, ”he said.
Cidadania leader Alessandro Vieira (Cidadania-SE) said Ernesto was not ready to take on the chancellor post, resulting in losses for the country.
“Minister Ernesto has never shown the ability to occupy such an important chair. Unprepared and with radical positions, he caused serious damage to the country, especially in the geopolitical dispute over vaccines, ”he said.
If he also celebrates the departure of the Chancellor, the opposition emphasizes that the person responsible for the “diplomatic catastrophe” is also President Jair Bolsonaro.
“He arrived [para a sessão no Senado] under fire from opposition parliamentarians and even some who vote in agreement with the government, but in the end, the impression that remains is that Bolsonaro washes his hands and serves the head of his minister in a plate of money “said Minority Leader Senator Jean Paul Prates (PT-RN).
“The fry of the Minister of Foreign Affairs is obvious. He was presented as the culprit of the hour for the delay and lack of vaccines in the country. That Araújo is a diplomatic disaster, no one denies it. But he is the goat that they put in the room so that the others do not pay for the sin to be atoned for. If Brazil does not have vaccines, Bolsonaro is responsible, ”he added.
In a note, the PSDB said that the former chancellor, instead of defending urgent Brazilian interests, such as finding a vaccine or improving foreign trade, “preferred to use the foreign ministry as spokesperson for ideological and political deviations. paranoid part of the supporters of the current president “.
“In practice, his leadership helped isolate us from the most relevant countries in the world. He wanted to turn Brazil into an ‘outcast’, but he went further and made us a global disgrace,” said the left.
In the hemicycle, the departure of the minister was also celebrated. For MP Fausto Pinato (PP-SP), the exchange at the Chancellery represents victory in a battle, but not against the “war against the disinformation machine led by [deputado] Eduardo Bolsonaro ”.
“The fake news attacking Supreme [Tribunal Federal], the media and members of Congress, and this leads to the disinformation that has killed people in Brazil and that has killed Brazil’s diplomatic relations with other countries, because this olavista and extremist virus is even more deadly than Covid, because he is killing people and wants to kill Brazilian democracy, ”he declared.
Member of the External Relations Committee, Deputy Rodrigo Agostinho (PSB-SP) said that the former Chancellor “has tarnished the image and history of Brazilian diplomacy”. “It was late and he won’t fail. Let the government not put another madman in place, ”he said.
MP Marcel Van Hattem (Novo-RS), who is also part of the collegiate church, said he hoped the new chancellor’s goal would be to find solutions to the pandemic. “Whether it is by acquiring vaccines from other countries, or by releasing so that municipalities and states can also make purchases, which are currently facing difficulties,” he said.
He defended a closer relationship between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Health to “assess these cases and unlock these purchases, because the more people there are vaccinated, the better”.
In addition, Van Hattem also wants the minister to help defend immunization through purchases from the private sector itself. “I think that in the context of the pandemic, this is the main thing the minister can do, without neglecting other areas,” he added.
“To maintain stable and fruitful diplomatic relations with all the countries of the world, in particular those which have good commercial relations with Brazil and, where this is not the case, defend the maximum opening of the market and commercial freedom . “
MP Reinhold Stephanes Junior (PSD-PR), also a member of the committee, believes that the decision to leave Itamaraty was “a noble act of the minister”. “Because he had the president’s support and in my opinion he did a good job. It is not a question of creating embarrassment for the government, because a climate has been created against it.
For him, the minister who must assume will be aligned with the country’s foreign policy, and will be moderate and thoughtful. “It won’t be someone with a leftist ideology, with a market foreclosure, he won’t be coming back to the country anytime soon,” he said. “He will have a policy of openness to trade with the main world powers.”