Experts in international politics assure that the situation in both countries is not comparable, but they warn of the danger of not forcefully condemning what happened.
Spain is not Brazil, experts in international politics recall, but its political representatives would be wrong to underestimate or frivolize last Sunday’s attack on the headquarters of Brazilian democracy. “We are in an election year and it is normal that there is a temptation to take everything to your own ground, but You have to be careful. We are still far from something similar happening in Spain, but the lukewarmness with which certain political parties have reacted in an election year as intense as this is worrisome,” explained Carlos Malamud, a researcher to El Periódico de España, from the Prensa Ibérica group. principal for Latin America of the Elcano Royal Institute.
Last Sunday afternoon, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters forcibly entered the headquarters of the Brazilian democratic institutions, the state’s “quick response” helped to deflate the assault in time, but the act set a “dangerous” precedent in terms of at ways to disagree with some electoral results as it already happened during the assault on the Capitol in the United States in January 2021.
“It is difficult to think about the possibility that this could occur in our country, and on that scale, but we are in an era in which social networks spread ideas very quickly. If you see the first reactions to what has happened in the environment of the PP and the PSOE, they seem to be two different realities,” says the expert.
According to a recent report by the communication consultancy Llorente y Cuenta (LLYC), Brazil is the country with the highest degree of polarization in terms of the conversation that occurs on social networks, especially on issues that have to do with racism and freedom of expression. expression. In Latin America as a whole, says the study, polarization has risen 39% from 2017 to today.
Spain, which is no stranger to this growing gap between the different schools of thought of its citizens, will experience regional elections in a large part of its territory in mid-2023, and, at the end of the year, general elections will be called when the legislature is over. current. Twelve months in which the electoral campaign will be continuous and in which there is a risk of falling into the temptation of further polarizing the discourses.
“In Spain there would be no way to try to import a ‘modus operandi’ like the one seen in Brazil. There may be very small groups that are willing to do so, but the population, in general, is not open to taking the path of violence “, says Mariano Jabonero, secretary general of the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), who points out that it would rather cause “rejection” among the vast majority of voters, as has happened in the South American country.
Spanish politics, faced
However, between violence and understanding there are many nuances. Despite the fact that international condemnation of what happened in Brazil has been practically unanimous both inside and outside the South American country, in Spain it has served to confront the different parties. The answer of Cuca Gamarra, spokesman for the Popular Party, to a tweet from Pedro Sanchez in which he condemned the assault on congress has been the trigger for a new crossover of accusations between the government and the opposition.
With you, in Spain this is now a simple public disorder… https://t.co/O75XlbB1kL
— Cuca Gamarra (@cucagamarra) January 8, 2023
One of the first to criticize his words was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albareswhich charged against the Popular Party for not quickly condemning the assault.
The president of the main opposition party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in his first reaction avoided giving his support to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, although later the new spokesman for the PP electoral committee, Borja Sémper, rectified, assuring that they do give their “support “to the Brazilian president. In any case, Sémper has continued with theto line opened by Gamarra and Feijóo himself and has maintained the comparison between the riots in Brazil and what can happen “in the future” in Spain with the independentistas and the “populists”.
An “expected” assault
The experts consulted by this newspaper point out, however, that it is necessary to analyze the real magnitude of the Bolsonaristas willing to take over the institutions by force. As Jabonero recalls, barely one in four voters of the former Brazilian president support the path of force, that is, a quarter of the 49% of voters who went to the polls at the end of last year.
“It is important to take them into account, of course, but you also have to think about the response of the security forces, the Army, politicians, citizens, the media… There has been a practically unanimous condemnation of what happened “recalls Malamud for his part. “It is early to say that what happened will not continue in the coming days, weeks or months, but it has been shown that, despite the fact that Latin American democracies tend to be fragile, depending on the country, there has been a good response. “.
Jabonero, for his part, assures that what happened was something that could be “expected”, but that the international support that the Brazilian government has received has also been “key”. A support that was not so unanimous, for example, in the case of Peru just a month ago. However, the principal investigator of the Elcano Royal Institute believes that thinking that Latin America is united in defense of democracy is a somewhat “utopian” perspective and that each country has “its own vision of democracy.”
Brazil, a key market for Spanish investment
The instability, however, “will not foreseeably affect”, say the experts, the volume of investments by Spanish companies in Brazil, where a good part of the Ibex 35 companies are present. “Brazil is, like Mexico in Central America, a strategic country for us, our key market in South America”, pointed out to El Periódico de España Antonio del Corro, executive director of the Brazil-Spain Chamber of Commerce, in an interview prior to the elections last October.
Since 2001, according to the organization, the investment of Spanish companies in the country has exceeded 82,000 million euros. A relationship that continues to grow closer and that has brought giants such as Banco Santander, which is already one of the three most important financial institutions in Brazil, Iberdrola, which through its subsidiary is one of the most thriving energy companies in the country, or AENA, which has recently taken over the management of several airports.