(Bloomberg) -- It was an unfortunate gaffe for a leftist government to make in the current political climate. With President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva out of commission, his stand-in met a leader from eastern Europe and referred to him as the head of a country that has melted away after the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago.
That was not the debut that Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin wanted when he received a last-minute call to step in for his boss, who’s in intensive care following an emergency brain surgery. He was meant to receive the first visit of a Slovak prime minister to the Latin American country.
He canceled his agenda in the state of Sao Paulo on Tuesday and flew to Brasilia early in the morning, in time to host Robert Fico for lunch in the nation’s capital. More careful than usual, Alckmin read from prepared remarks, as if sensing the risk of a cardinal error.
It began well enough: Lula “has asked me to send you a warm embrace and to share his happiness to receive you.” And then the faux pas: “By the way, this is the first time that a prime minister from Yugoslavia visits Brazil, and we’re happy and honored.”
The text Alckmin was reading from correctly mentioned “Slovakia” rather than “Yugoslavia” — a country in Southeast and Central Europe that ceased to exist in 1992.
Alckmin, a centrist politician who made an alliance with the leftist Lula in the 2022 election, seemed to be stuck in the past.
Yugoslavia is almost a historic footnote at this point. Once upon a time, it was a pot pourri of countries that was created in the aftermath of World War I and was ruled under the iron fist of Josip Broz Tito, a communist revolutionary turned dictator. After it was broken up, the various ethnic and religious differences led to bloodshed and required US military intervention, the last of its kind in Europe.
Fico, who was listening to Alckmin through an interpreter, didn’t seem to have noticed the lapse.
He said he hoped for Lula’s “quick recovery because the world needs people like him.”
--With assistance from Andre Loureiro Dias.
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