López Obrador receives Dilma Rousseff at Mexico’s National Palace

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, received this Wednesday the former president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, at the National Palace in Mexico City.

“I received the former president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, at the National Palace. Tomorrow (Thursday) she will accompany us at the ceremony for the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlán,” López Obrador said in a message on Twitter.

Later, in a statement, it was reported that the meeting was also attended by the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Marcelo Ebrard, and the coordinator of advisors to the Presidency of the Republic, Lázaro Cárdenas Batel.

Rousseff was accompanied by Congressman Rui Falcão (PT-SP).

The former Brazilian president (2011-2016) is in Mexico to participate this Thursday, May 13, together with López Obrador in an event commemorating the seven centuries since the founding of Tenochtitlan, the Mexican capital and current Mexico City. Rousseff will attend the event as guest of honor, while on Wednesday she was proclaimed distinguished guest of Mexico City.

At this event, Rousseff described as “genocide” the management of the pandemic carried out by the current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.

The former president of Brazil, a member of the Workers’ Party (PT), was impeached in 2016 by Congress for irregularities in the management of public accounts, something she considers a “coup d’état”.

Rousseff will be part of the marathon of events that the Mexican government has organized in 2021 one to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan (1321, a date questioned by historians), the 500th anniversary of the conquest (1521) and the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s independence (1821).

So far, the presidents of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, Bolivia, Luis Arce, and Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, as well as the African-American activist Martin Luther King III, have participated in some events.