Brazil’s Independence Day will be a purely Portuguese-speaking affair

The Itamaraty Palace, headquarters of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, informed that by directive of President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian diplomacy has only sent invitations to the heads of state of the Portuguese-speaking countries for the grand national celebration on September 7, the occasion of the bicentennial of Brazil’s independence.

Itamaraty sources specified that only the heads of state of Portugal, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, Mozambique, and East Timor had received invitations for the celebration which commemorates the decision of Prince Dom Pedro I, who in 1822 broke with the Portuguese crown to establish an independent monarchy, which lasted until the proclamation of the Republic, on November 15, 1889.

The program announced by the Brazilian Executive includes two military parades, one in Brasilia and the other in Rio de Janeiro, which according to local analysts, are part of an attempt by Bolsonaro to turn the civic celebration into a show of popular support for his candidacy because of the presidential elections to be held on October 2, for which he appears second in voter preferences, almost 20 points behind former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“We want to innovate in Rio de Janeiro. For the first time, our Armed Forces and auxiliary forces will parade on Copacabana beach,” Bolsonaro said on Saturday during the convention of the Republicanos party, linked to the evangelical Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, which gave him its support for re-election and launched former Minister of Infrastructure, Tarcísio de Freitas, as a candidate for governor of São Paulo state.

The military parade on the traditional Copacabana Avenue will be the first to occur since 1960 in Rio de Janeiro – a bastion of military power – the year the country’s capital was transferred to Brasilia – a parade that will have as one of its main animators Army General Walter Souza Braga Nieto, former Minister of Defense and current Bolsonaro’s running mate.

In addition to specifying that the celebration will begin in the morning with a protocol act in Brasilia and that in the afternoon, he will participate in the military parade in Rio de Janeiro, Bolsonaro harangued his supporters:

“We are going to show our people that more than desiring, they have the right to demand peace, democracy, transparency, and freedom,” said the president, who has repeatedly questioned the electronic voting system and the electoral justice system.

A TURNING POINT

Last week, Bolsonaro summoned 70 ambassadors, an occasion in which he reiterated that the current electoral system did not offer transparency and defended the possibility of parallel scrutiny monitored by the military.

Bolsonaro’s statements added to the military parades, and the call made to his supporters became a turning point a little more than two months before the elections.

REGIONAL ISOLATION

Analysts point out that the decision not to invite the heads of Latin American states to the bicentennial celebration should be read in a regional key. Since he assumed the presidency in 2019, the president lost ideological allies after the elections in Argentina, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Colombia.

In fact, in South American chancelleries, the memory of what Bolsonaro said when he launched his candidacy on Sunday, July 24, in Rio de Janeiro, when he described Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Colombia as examples that should not be followed, is still fresh in their minds. Countries he defined as “communist” and part of his strategy to position himself against the candidacy of Lula da Silva, of the Workers’ Party.

With information from El Observador

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