In the new chapter of the clashes between presidents Jair Bolsonaro and Alberto Fernández, the Brazilian posted this Thursday morning (15) an article on the new curfew announced by the Argentine for the Buenos Aires region. The post, however, contains at least two errors.
Faced with a rapid escalation in coronavirus cases, attributed mainly to the circulation of new variants, Argentina is facing a second wave of the pandemic with successive records: nearly 28,000 records of infection in 24 hours and a total cumulative deaths that exceed 58 thousand.
For this reason, Fernández announced in a televised statement Wednesday evening (14) the curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, where 16 million people live.
The traffic restriction and the compulsory closure of shops and restaurants are effective from midnight on Friday (16). Fernández also announced that classes will also cease to be in person from next week. All new measures are valid, in principle, until April 30.
Bolsonaro, critic of the social distancing measures, wrote on a social network Thursday that with the announcement, “the Argentine army will be on the streets to keep people at home” and that the curfew will last from 20 hours to 8 hours. Both statements are false
First, the new curfew will be between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., not 8 a.m. Regarding the use of the army, the Brazilian president relied on a report from the Infobae website which in fact indicates that the army is being used. But the Argentine government made it clear that this was not going to happen and the vehicle itself pulled the statement out of the air.
In his speech on Thursday evening (14), Fernández announced that security forces would be on the streets to monitor the measures, but he was referring to the police. After the announcement, Defense Minister Agustín Rossi said the military “would have the same role it played in last year’s crisis, to provide health care, distribute food and help organize tests and vaccinations “.
“The military will not perform any citizenship control task. There will be no tanks, luckily they are well guarded. The armed forces will not perform any domestic security duties.” And he even added that his action in the streets will be “unarmed”.
In an interview with a local radio station this Thursday morning (15), Fernández declared that “it would be important to explain to Jair Bolsonaro a little how the Constitution works”. And he added: “In Argentina, the armed forces do not provide internal security. The armed forces have collaborated in a magnificent way in the pandemic, now I have asked them to help us set up health posts so that we can multiply the tests and meet each other. any situation that may be necessary. to come together “.
The relationship between agents is marked by swoops and distance. Bolsonaro campaigned for Fernández’s opponent, then President Mauricio Macri, in the 2019 elections.
After the rival’s victory, the Brazilian said he would not greet the Argentinian and issued several criticisms of the return of Peronism (a political group to which Fernández and his deputy, ex-president Cristina Kirchner belong) in the neighboring country, which he identified as a turn of course from Argentina “to Venezuela”.
The deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro (PSL-SP), son of the Brazilian president, was even more explicit in his criticisms. In September, he said what was happening in Argentina due to the long quarantine imposed by Fernández was a “calamity” and that the country had been “destroyed by its socialist government within months”.
From November, however, there was a rapprochement between the countries, after the installation of Ambassador Daniel Scioli in Brasilia. The first conversation between the two presidents took place in December, a year after Fernández’s inauguration. During the virtual meeting, the Argentine president demanded that the differences of the past be put aside and that “the future be confronted with the tools that work well” for the two countries, “reinforcing all points of agreement”.
On this occasion, Fernández defended the deepening of integration into Mercosur, while Bolsonaro underlined the objectives of reducing the CET (common external tariff) and broadening the trade agreements of the bloc.
These two themes oppose the Peronist government in Argentina and the Bolsonaro administration. The Argentines are resisting the lowering of the CET, on the grounds that this decision would harm their domestic industry and, for this reason, they have put obstacles in the negotiations of trade treaties.
The TEC is an import tax shared between Mercosur partners and requires the consent of the four members to be reformed. That is why, even though he called the bloc “our pillar of integration”, Bolsonaro stressed the need to create “more agile and less bureaucratic mechanisms”.