The director of the National Audiovisual Communication Service (SECAN), Gerardo Sotelo, was one of the first officials of the Luis Lacalle Pou government to speak out after the victory of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, who defeated outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro.
But, with a small handful of words, he provoked anger and indignation on the social network Twitter, where Sotelo is quite active.
“And so, with the triumph of the thief over the facho, another election took place in this long-suffering Latin America. mommy”, wrote the highest hierarch of the Uruguayan public media.
Various people pointed out to him that, precisely because he is responsible for state television and radio, his expressions should be more careful.
The MPP deputy, Sebastián Valdomir, was one of the first to come out against these statements. “What a level of analysis for the person in charge of the public media of a country that says it is serious… Just for the detail that calls the elected president of an important commercial partner of Uruguay a ‘thief’, the Minister should be called to account @pdasilve (Pablo Da Silveira, Minister of the MEC)“, wrote.
“Uruguayan public media director calling the democratically elected president a ‘thief’ for the third time. A shame,” tweeter Alexandra Lizbona Cohen wrote.
The frentamplista militant, Rafael Di Donato, replied: “You are irresponsible. Locate yourself, you have a public position and we pay you your salary so that you work, not so that you embarrass us”.
Javier Furtado, another tweeter who also claims to be a lawyer and notary public, responded to Sotelo’s tweet: “The level of analysis of who runs the state channel. For foreigners, I assure you: this pathetic comment does not represent the average Uruguayan.”
And so, with the triumph of the thief over the facho, another election took place in this long-suffering Latin America. Mommy.
– Gerardo Sotelo (@Cybertario) October 30, 2022
he retracts
Faced with the barrage of criticism and widespread rejection, Sotelo returned to Twitter to try to clarify what, according to him, he really meant.
Quoting the incendiary tweet itself, he commented: “Literality and bad faith destroy irony. The qualifiers are not mine. They are the ones they exchanged during the campaign!”
And he concluded: “They were not insults but criticism of a form of politics that does not represent me. If anyone did not understand this, please accept my apologies.”
