Bolsonaro Cancels Barbecue at Alvorada Palace After Negative Repercussions

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The day before the barbecue announced by President Jair Bolsonaro for Saturday at the Alvorada Palace, guests were notified that the event would be canceled following the initiative’s negative repercussions in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

On Friday evening, the plan was for guests to arrive at the President’s official residence early on Saturday morning at 7:30 AM for a soccer match on the field in the back of the palace.

The gathering would run counter to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health’s recommendations. On Thursday, when he announced the barbecue, Bolsonaro said that the event should be attended by 30 guests, including Ministers and officials. And that participants would have to “pitch-in” with R$70 (US$14) to help pay for the event.

Faced with criticism for this initiative – which was dubbed the “barbecue of death” on social media, for having been scheduled for the day when Brazil would reach a total of ten thousand deaths as the result of Covid-19 – close allies of the President acted behind the scenes to challenge the event, which would have been a “provocation” by Bolsonaro.

On Saturday morning, the Chief Minister of the Government Secretariat, Luiz Eduardo Ramos, entered the Alvorada on his motorcycle and left about 50 minutes later.

On Saturday morning, Bolsonaro posted on Facebook an excerpt from a video in which he ironizes the event with supporters and wrote that the barbecue that he had himself publicly announced was “fake” and criticized the Movimento Brasil Livre (Free Brazil Movement – MBL) for having petitioned the courts to try to prevent the event from taking place. “Some idiotic journalists criticized the FAKE barbecue, but the MBL exceeded itself, it took an ACTION IN THE COURTS,” he wrote.

When he announced “the barbecue on Saturday here at home,” Bolsonaro said he had invited one of his Ministers, who was widowed this week. With a grave countenance, he then commented that the aide would bring his son, but that the boy should not look at Laura, the President’s nine-year-old daughter, so things don’t “get ugly”.

“And we’ll have a chat here, who knows, play a pick-up soccer game with a few Ministers, some more humble servants who are on my side, okay?”, commented the President, saying that he places himself in the Minister’s shoes, saying that he “surely” has a friend in him “for this also difficult moment”.

‘Everyone is invited here. 800 people at the barbecue’

Upon arrival at the Alvorada on Friday evening, the President mocked the decision to hold a barbecue there and refrained from answering any questions as to whether the event would not set a bad example due to the need for social isolation. Jokingly, he said 1,300 people had already been confirmed for the event.

“I’m only inviting the press for the barbeque. There are already 180 guests,” said Bolsonaro to supporters, joking over the number of people confirmed for the event.

“There are now 210 guests. There are 210 heads of households, there should be 500 people at the barbecue tomorrow”.

Source: O Globo