January 15, 2023

10:01

Paula Litaiff and Ívina Garcia – from Amazon Agency

SÃO GABRIEL DA CACHOEIRA (AM) – In the façade of the bakery and confectionery Elite, in the city of São Gabriel da Cachoeira (860 kilometers from Manaus), there is a Brazilian flag, not as a memory of the last World Cup, but to identify that the company is co-religionist former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in the city considered the most petist of the country. In São Gabriel, president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) obtained 80.64% of the votes in the second round of the general elections against 19.36% for Bolsonaro.

The report team of AMAZON AGENCY was in the Elite bakery, place chosen by the former president for breakfast in one of the three days he was in the city, in 2021 (days 26, 27 and May 28), where he inaugurated a wooden bridge at km 91, BR-307, São Gabriel da Cachoeira, which connects the urban area of the city to the Yanomami Indigenous Land in Balaio. On May 28, Bolsonaro spent the sum of R$ 23.2 thousand on his corporate card at the bakery alone. The total spent on the three-day trip was R$ 710,835.28.

Jair Bolsonaro greets indigenous people during his passage through São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in 2021, without wearing masks, which was mandatory at the time, against Covid-19 (Image: Rede Amazônica)

The prices of the items in the Elite bakery vary from R$ 3 (water) to R$ 59.67 (sandwich buffet), most of the products of which are displayed in the establishment, which has an area of approximately 120 square meters on the first floor of the hotel of the same name. The bakery sells snacks, sweets, sandwiches, juices, fruit and coffee.

Complete menu at the Elite bakery, where Bolsonaro spent more than R$ 23 thousand in a single day (Paula Litaiff/AMAZON AGENCY)

With Bolsonaro, was an committee of ten advisors who were, approximately, two hours in the establishment. The government servers, as well as the president, ordered sandwiches and typical items of the Amazon, among them, the “x-caboquinho”, composed of French bread, curd cheese, fried banana pacovã and tucumã [native fruit of region], which costs R$ 10,50. They preferred regional juices as drinks.

Current employees of Elite were guided by the establishment not to talk about the passage of the former president by the bakery, especially, after the disclosure of the expenses of the corporate card, which had a 100-year secrecy and was broken by the Lula government after requests for public information agencies.

According to data from the card, almost R$ 270,000 were spent on Bolsonaro’s trips to Amazonas from 2019 to 2021, and at least R$ 27 million nationwide. By the survey, no expenses were recorded in Amazonas in 2022.

Account does not match

Former employees who were at the Elite bakery in Bolsonaro’s passage through São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in May 2021, agreed to speak with the report team and reported that the orders noted, on the table, were sandwiches and regional items. They were surprised when they were informed that the bill came to R$23,200 that day.

“I don’t remember if all they ate made all that money. I think it’s very difficult, because they had sandwiches, snacks and juices. It wasn’t all that much, but I don’t want to comment too much because I’m afraid of getting involved in confusion”, said a former employee who did not want his name published.

He said that he was warned by the president’s advisors, at the time, to avoid requests for photos and conversations with Bolsonaro. “We couldn’t get too close to them (the president and the presidential committee), because it was a security issue, we were told. They always talked very quietly among themselves and kept whispering close to their ears so we wouldn’t hear”, said the former employee.

Another employee said that one of the advisors asked that the bakery be closed during the time that the former president was in the bakery – an official act to protect the security of the Presidency – and everything that the president was going to eat was first analyzed by an advisor of the committee.

“She would look at the product and ask how long it was from and how it was made, but I didn’t see a taste before her, she just seemed very concerned”, reported a former employee, who also preferred not to identify her name in the story.

Company mocks

After the disclosure that the Elite bakery is among the companies on Jair Bolsonaro’s corporate card list with expenses that draw attention, one of the representatives of the establishment, Paulo André, mocked the news on his Twitter with a printout of the information.

“It was a pleasure to have received a President of the Republic in our bakery. Elite family”, said Paulo André, sharing the print of the news entitled: “Bolsonaro also spent R$ 23 thousand in a bakery in São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM)”.

The Elite bakery is registered under CNPJ 02.660.659/0001-08, as an individual company, in the name of D. D. Silva Alves, with a capital stock of R$ 120 thousand, founded more than 24 years ago.

Indigenous City

At least 76% of the population of São Gabriel da Cachoeira self-declares to be indigenous, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in the municipality, which has 47,000 inhabitants, being considered the most indigenous city in Brazil, with 23 ethnicities.

Located on the border with Colombia and Venezuela, the municipality, where Bolsonaro spent more than R$23,000 on breakfast, has a Human Development Index (HDI) of 604, considered average.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of São Gabriel da Cachoeira is R$ 8.1 thousand, lower than the average of the state (R$ 27.6 thousand) and the metropolitan region of Manaus (R$ 34.2 thousand), according to data from the Caravelas Statistics Institute.

Currently, the city goes through problems in the economic area, whose population faces challenges with a lack of options for entrepreneurship and, consequently, perspectives. The municipality has the highest Brazilian mortality rate among young indigenous people by suicide.

Anti-indigenous discourse

The resistance of the residents of São Gabriel da Cachoeira to Jair Bolsonaro in the elections comes from anti-indigenous speeches that the former president made during his trajectory as a federal lawmaker (almost 30 years) and in the position of president of the Republic (2019-2022).

Among Jair Bolsonaro’s most regrettable manifestations about indigenous people is the statement, in brief, that it was “a pity that the Brazilian cavalry has not been as efficient as the American cavalry, which exterminated the indians.”

The speech is transcribed in the Journal of the House of Representatives, in the April 16, 1998 edition, and had international repercussions. The president never apologized for the phrase and promised, in the 2018 election campaign for the Presidency of the Republic, not to demarcate indigenous lands, which was fulfilled in his term.