After weeks of refusal, Captain Bolsonaro finally obeyed: at the last minute, under pressure, the Brazilian president agreed to send a representative of his government to the investiture of Alberto Fernandez, new Argentine head of state , which took up residence Tuesday, December 10 at Casa Rosada, seat of power in Buenos Aires.
For this task, which he considers ungrateful, Mr. Bolsonaro has nevertheless sent his vice-president, General Hamilton Mourao, second person of the State. " Mission accomplished !, said the latter on Twitter at the end of the inauguration ceremony, where, good soldier and visibly relieved, he allowed himself to give a warm hug to Mr. Fernandez, even expressing his "Desire that the relations between (both) countries are always stronger, more mature and mutually beneficial. "
Certainly symbolic, the arrival of this high-ranking military has found a little serenity after months of very strong tension. Bolsonaro, repulsed by the return of the ruling left in Buenos Aires, said he would not go on any pretext for the festivities (a first in nearly two decades) and had a time threatened to boycott the event. It took the combined pressure of powerful parliamentary, military and economic lobbies to force him to change his mind.
Trench war
But the embers are still hot between these two sexagenarian leaders that opposes everything: on the one hand, a Jair Bolsonaro, boorish reserve captain, accustomed to outrages of all kinds, nostalgic of the dictatorship and always clean shaven. On the other, an Alberto Fernandez, lawyer as erudite as madre, Peronist marked on the left, proudly wearing a mustache brush.
All year long, the two men engaged in a trench warfare. Dealing, in the middle of the electoral campaign, the Brazilian president of "Racist, misogynist and violent", Mr. Fernandez did not hesitate to support and visit the former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro's bête noire, then incarcerated. A "Extraordinary man", according to him, that he will quote regularly as an example, even in his speech of victory.
Obviously, Jair Bolsonaro was not left behind, supporting the outgoing Argentinean president, the liberal Mauricio Macri, promising the apocalypse in case of victory of the left, suspicious in his eyes of wanting to create nothing less than "Great Bolivarian motherland" at the border, predicting, in turn, a wave of Argentine emigration, an explosion of Mercosur's commercial alliance and a flight of capital or Brazilian companies …
