The former president of the Republic, Jose ‘Pepe’ Mujica, confirmed that he will travel with Luis Lacalle Pou to the inauguration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on January 1 in Brasilia, where he will be sworn in as president of Brazil taking over from the outgoing Jair Messiah Bolsonaro.
Mujica told the press that he decided to accept Lacalle Pou’s invitation, “because it is collaborating with a small diplomatic gesture with such an important country for Uruguay, such as Brazil.” And he added: “It seems to me that it is a matter of principle, above any other consideration,” in statements to to day 810.
In other statements collected by Underlined, he stated that “there is a particular case that I am a friend of Lula. If it can help Uruguay a little bit, great”.
It is not the first time that Uruguay has made this type of diplomatic gesture: in 2019, then-President Tabaré Vázquez took the recently elected Lacalle Pou to present him to the Argentine president-elect, Alberto Fernández. This type of visit, Mujica understands, is
“One of the small luxuries that Uruguay can afford, that people who have differences, sometimes harsh, in any case, can gamble on a republican effort cultivating an image of bonhomie for the country.”
“I am concerned that this small and beautiful country does not fall into the harshness that occurs in other places, where political systems practically do not speak and almost hate each other. I don’t think democracy is viable with those attitudes,” she continued.
“Because behind political decisions there are human beings, and if human beings are in anger with each other, political relations work less. You have to take an attitude looking at the long term ”, she concluded.
Mujica traveled during Lula da Silva’s presidential campaign, invited by himself, since they have been personal friends for years and both are in the same place on the political spectrum in the regional context.
