“Yesterday I congratulated whoever won the first round, Lula won about 49% and Bolsonaro 43%,” President López Obrador said in his morning conference, a day after election day in Brazil. In reality, there is little reason to congratulate former President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, who governed Brazil between 2003-2010 and is now seeking the presidency of the Republic again, after being cleared of corruption charges in May 2021.
Until now, Lula has not won anything, except his passage to the second round of the presidential election, which will be held on Sunday, October 30. For the same reason, the Mexican head of state should also have congratulated his opponent, President Jair Bolsonaro. In fact, Bolsonaro has more to celebrate. He overcame a deficit in the polls of nearly 20 percentage points and managed to take the presidential election to a second round.
Nobody knows what will happen in four weeks. As Harold Wilson, Britain’s Labor prime minister from 1964-1970, said, “a week is a very long time in politics.” Many things can happen.
The real “winner” on Sunday was Bolsonaro. He prevented Lula from taking the presidency in the first round, something that many pollsters took for granted. He got more time to campaign for his re-election and against the return to the past that Lula represents. The result anticipates a second round more closed and uncertain.
Therefore, any congratulations from a head of state is impertinent. He may end up raising his hand to the wrong candidate. Either way, he’ll have to deal with the winner, whoever he is. Instead of letting himself be carried away by his sympathies, the prudence of the State advises waiting for a reasonable degree of certainty to extend congratulations and initiate a good relationship with a recently elected ruler.
But President López Obrador seems to guide his foreign policy by his personal likes and dislikes, rather than by the permanent interests of Mexico. His government has become an erratic and unreliable partner for other nations, which privileges its internal political agenda over its international commitments.
Instead of relying on the chancellery, foreign policy is managed from the National Palace. Impromptu statements at morning conferences have displaced diplomacy. The Ministry of Foreign Relations has been relegated to a reactive role, which often consists of mere damage control.
Once again, the contradictions of a personalized foreign policy became evident in the case of the hasty congratulations to Lula. In November 2020, President López Obrador refused to recognize the victory of Joe Biden in the US presidential elections, even when the calculations irreversibly confirmed it and other heads of state extended their congratulations.
His intention, he said then, was “to wait for all legal matters to be resolved.” In fact, however, he tacitly validated the goal of Donald Trump, the losing presidential candidate, to delegitimize the electoral process.
With Brazil, however, the Tabasco politician put aside legal matters and the diplomatic relationship with the largest economy in Latin America. He wanted to show his sympathy for Lula, the left-wing presidential candidate. But he also made it clear that his is a factious foreign policy, willing to sacrifice Mexico’s interests in the name of his ideological leanings.
*Professor at CIDE.
Twitter: @BenitoNacif
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