Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco (DEM-MG) has returned to ask President Jair Bolsonaro for changes in Brazilian foreign policy, which the senator considers flawed and which must be corrected for the country to have a foreign ministry “which works ”.
Pacheco met this morning (26) with Bolsonaro, after the first meeting with the governors to respond to requests as part of the national committee to confront Covid-19.
At the end of the meeting, he said he again expressed his dissatisfaction with Brazilian foreign policy to the president. Chancellor Ernesto Araújo is considered by Pacheco and the Speaker of the House, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), as one of the main responsible for the failures of the actions to fight the pandemic.
“The permanence or the departure of the minister, whatever it is, belongs to the president. What belongs to us as a Senate, a Chamber, as a Parliament, is to collect and supervise the actions of the ministry ”, he declared. “And we believe that Brazil’s foreign policy is still flawed, it needs to be corrected, it is necessary to improve relations with other countries, including China, because it is Brazil’s largest trading partner.”
According to Pacheco, Bolsonaro has heard the criticism, but has not made any comments or said whether the minister will be retained or replaced. “With Minister A or Minister B, what matters is a functioning ministry.”
This week, the discontent over Ernesto’s conduct as head of the Foreign Ministry was clear in the minister’s participation in House and Senate sessions. The chancellor has been criticized and received little support from the president’s allies. Bolsonaro collaborators say the manner chosen to pressure Ernesto’s exchange was aggressive and, in their opinion, should lengthen the process.
Also according to aides, the president was irritated by the tone of the critics and especially by the statements of Lira, who, Wednesday (24), came to speak of “bitter remedies” and “fatal” of Parliament if there is not, on the other hand, the “flexibility to give in”.
Pacheco also referred to Filipe Martins, the presidency’s international affairs adviser, caught making an obscene and racist gesture during the Senate session during which he accompanied Ernesto. Martins, who presents himself on social networks as a professor of international politics and political analyst, made a gesture that can be read as “ok”, but also as “will take in c.”, Especially in Brazil.
The gesture, however, has a different connotation for far-right groups in the United States and has been classified as an “expression of white supremacy” by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization that monitors crimes. of hatred in this country. The three outstretched fingers symbolize the letter “w”, which would refer to the English word “white”. The circle formed represents the letter “p”, for the word “power”. In other words, the symbol is flagged as a “white power” symbol.
“We talked about it very quickly. I informed the President of the Republic that this was the subject of an investigation and an investigation procedure within the framework of the legislative police of the Senate, which will have its conclusions ”, he declared. “And the legal consequences of that will obviously exist, they will be investigated and action taken.”
Pacheco reiterated that the Senate repudiates any “type of racist demonstration, obscene act, obscene gesture” and any kind of bad joke, “if that was the intention”. “Whatever the intention, it was completely inappropriate behavior.”
According to the President of the Senate, the police will investigate the fact, materiality and authorship, suggest the typicality and pass it on to the prosecution and the judiciary so that action can be taken.