Vladimir Putin and Jair Bolsonaro, this Wednesday in Moscow. MIKHAIL METZEL / SPUTNIK / CONTACTOPHOTO (MIKHAIL METZEL / SPUTNIK / CONTA)
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, during his controversial visit to Moscow for a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, was constantly aware of his obsessive fear of not being re-elected and that he could also be defeated by Lula, the worst of his adversaries, seen by him as a communist who tries to desacralize the country and impose what is politically incorrect.
The first thing he said upon arriving in Moscow was, in fact, that what "unites Brazil and Russia are faith in God and defense of the family."
Later, on national television, he insisted again that Brazil now has a president who "values the family", "honors his military" and "believes in God".
Next to him in Moscow, his wife, Michelle, wore a red T-shirt with the word 'Jesus' written on it.
His words seemed directed more than at Putin, at the PT, Lula's party, accused by Bolsonarism of being atheist, of wanting to undo the concept of the traditional family and of being anti-military.
Bolsonaro was physically in Moscow, but with his mind set on the next elections in which he will try to sell the country that the return to power of Lula's left would take Brazil back to the times when the traditional values of God, country, family and military were destroyed.
Of course, none of this interested Putin at the time, locked in his war interests.
The visit of the Brazilian leader at a time when he was harassed by the world's democracies and that, given the climate of war prevailing in the Kremlin, had been discouraged by United States diplomacy and even by the most moderate ministers of the Brazilian Government, it was rather a gift for the Soviet leader.
And it is that the controversial visit to Russia, which will be followed by another to Hungary to meet the far-rightist Víctor Orbán, could not have been better for Bolsonaro to demonstrate to his most radical fascist hosts that he continues to have weight abroad as well.
This is rather a mockery if one thinks that in these three years of Government no great world leader hastened to invite him to his country, neither from Europe nor from the Americas.
And that day in and day out, he continues to affirm that "if US President Biden invited him, he would be willing to talk with him."
Bolsonaro's foreign policy has been precisely the most disastrous in the history of democratic Brazil.
His first minister in charge of Itamaraty, Ernesto Araujo, one of the most radical of the ideological wing, was a real disaster and ended up being removed from his post.
He was on the verge of creating a democratic conflict with China and went so far as to affirm that "God had called Trump and Bolsonaro to save the West" and their values today trampled.
This has meant that during Bolsonaro's trip to Moscow, his less extremist advisers have been on tenterhooks until the last moment because the Brazilian president could tell Putin to create some diplomatic problem, and even more so at this time of warlike tension between Russia and Ukraine. .
Apparently, they had even given him in writing "what he should not say" so as not to compromise world diplomacy.
They forgot that Bolsonaro was actually referring to his great rival, Lula da Silva, who he indirectly accuses of having destroyed the image of God in his past governments in Brazil, while he opted for the defense of the new possible forms of family.
Also of having lost respect for the military and police world, which, in his opinion, would have given rise to the multiplication of crimes in the country.
Hence, Bolsonaro coined his fascist slogan that “the best thief is a dead thief”, giving the police free rein to kill with impunity.
Bolsonaro's statements in Moscow have been, in reality, a rehearsal of what the electoral campaign for the presidency could be, which is full of omens and gloomy forebodings.
To begin with, he has already launched the slander that the system used in Brazil for elections, the electronic ballot boxes, in which he was elected, are manipulated.
He is healing in the face of his possible defeat, which appears more probable every day, according to all the polls, to the point that there is already talk that he could find an excuse to resign if he saw himself defeated beforehand.
What is feared is that said resignation would not be painless.
Bolsonaro praises the military and its policemen every day, in whom he trusts to be able to try, if he saw himself as a loser, some kind of authoritarian coup in order to remain in power.
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