President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) sent to Congress the candidacies for diplomatic posts abroad, including that of the former number 2 of Itamaraty under the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

Former secretary general Fernando Simas Magalhães is expected to be the new ambassador to the Netherlands – his name has yet to be approved by the Senate. Lula also appointed former ambassador to Washington Nestor Forster, identified with Bolsonaro and friend of writer Olavo de Carvalho (1947-2022), to the consulate general in Vancouver, Canada. For the leaders of this type of representation, the Sabbath is not necessary.

The candidacies and nominations were published in this Wednesday’s (17) edition of the Official Journal.

Forster’s appointment to a consulate is due to the difficulty he might face in Senate hearings, due to his identification with the former president. The diplomat left the representation in Washington in January, replaced by Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, who will be the first woman to head the American embassy. His name was approved last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Forster has good traffic in the American capital and experience in this diplomatic representation since the 1990s, having even acted under the administrations of the PT. But his defense of Bolsonaro while in power and his connection to Bolsonarian figures put him at the top of the new government’s swap list.

Moreover, the ambassador was a friend of Olavo de Carvalho, considered a kind of guru of Bolsonarism. He honored him on different occasions and, after the writer’s death, posted in an embassy profile on social media that Olavo left “a lasting legacy through his vast work”.

Also in the field of appointments, where there is no need for a sabbatical in the Senate, Lula appointed Norberto Moretti as Brazil’s alternate representative to the UN, which corresponds to number 2 in this position. Number 1 will be Sérgio Danese, whose name has already been approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee.

For the post of consul general of Brazil in Orlando, United States, the president nominated João Quental Novaes de Almeida. Lula also transmitted to the Senate the appointments of Claudio Frederico de Matos Arruda to be ambassador to Australia and Ricardo Guerra de Araújo to lead the representation in Romania.

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