Bolsonaro Billboards Provoke Protests in Paraguay
The Weekly Post | 03.06.26
Mysterious Bolsonaro ads stoke patriotic backlash
Residents of Ciudad del Este reacted with fury on Friday morning after billboards along the Paraguayan border city’s main avenue displayed an AI-generated poster of Jair Bolsonaro mocking Paraguay.
An angry crowd tore down at least one of the adverts, which depicted the former Brazilian president aiming a punch at a bloodied, hunched-over Paraguayan football player resembling defender Gustavo Gómez.
“This is Brazil!” read Bolsonaro’s speech bubble: “Show some respect!”
A caption meanwhile boasted of Brazil’s diplomatic, economic and sporting prowess, predicting the country would take home its sixth FIFA World Cup this July.
As videos of the incidents went viral, top Paraguayan politicians demanded an explanation.
“We deplore the offensive billboards”, Paraguay’s conservative president, Santiago Peña, wrote on social media. “These kinds of actions don’t contribute to the understanding nor respect that should prevail between peoples.”
He suggested Paraguay’s current economic success — the country’s GDP grew by nearly 7% last year, compared to 2.3% in Brazil — is “making some people uncomfortable.”
Peña said the electronic billboards had been illegally erected on a public highway, and that he had ordered them to be taken down.
Flávio Bolsonaro, the son and political heir of the right-wing former leader, replied to Peña’s messages on X.
“I vehemently repudiate the criminal use of my father Jair Bolsonaro’s image to assault Gustavo Gómez and provoke the Paraguayan people,” he wrote.
Gómez is one of the “greatest active centre-backs in Brazilian football”, the senator continued. He noted that the Paraguayan plays for São Paulo club Palmeiras — “the team closest to my father’s heart.”
“May the Paraguayan authorities hold the perpetrators of this unacceptable aggression accountable,” concluded Bolsonaro junior, the leading opposition candidate in Brazil’s election this October.
It wasn’t immediately clear who had broadcast the inflammatory images along the main shopping street of Ciudad del Este, metres from the cross-border bridge to Brazil.
Pro-government press, politicians, and commentators claimed the local city council — which is loyal to former mayor Miguel Prieto, Paraguay’s leading opposition figure — was responsible for authorising the advertisements.
In a statement, Ciudad del Este city hall noted that the billboards stand on a strip of highway owned by the national public works ministry (MOPC), and said it would demand an explanation from those responsible.
A local PR chamber suggested the electronic billboards had been hacked.
Aldo Barrios, a regional councillor and Prieto ally, was filmed using a set of pliers to cut the wires to the overhead LED screens.
“Sorted,” he told his social media followers. “Not all Brazilians would do this, this is just one son of a b****.”
Barrios denied his party was to blame and accused the MOPC of striking a “dirty deal” to put up the adverts.
“How do they not expect people not to react?” he asked, as a cheering mob stamped on one of the dismantled screens.
THE POST TAKE
To understand why the crude cartoons caused an international scandal, it helps to know a little of the painful history between Brazil and Paraguay.
For centuries, Portuguese-speaking raiders from São Paulo rampaged over the hazy frontier into colonial Paraguay, attacking its Jesuit missions and enslaving Indigenous tribes.
During the Triple Alliance War (1864–70), Brazil’s invading armies helped wipe out half of Paraguay’s population, killed the president, seized chunks of Paraguay’s territory, looted the capital — and occupied Asunción for seven years.
The twentieth century saw Brazil’s military dictatorship strongarm Paraguayan despot Alfredo Stroessner (1954-89) into allowing a monumental infrastructure project to be built across the Paraná River.
The Binational Itaipú Dam submerged a set of waterfalls greater than Niagara, uprooted dozens of native villages, provided Brazil’s factories with cheap power for decades and imprinted a legacy of kickbacks and corruption in Paraguay.
Since then, some 250,000 Brazilians have settled in Paraguay: especially in eastern border departments, where many locals speak a mix of Portuguese, Spanish and native dialect Guaraní.
Following an espionage scandal involving Itaipú last year, relations between Peña and Lula have turned frosty. Paraguay has signed a military cooperation deal with the US, while Brazil’s president Lula has criticised Trump’s interventions across Latin America.
Community relations today are mixed. Many Brazilian migrants are students: especially would-be doctors and lawyers in search of quicker and easier degrees. But many brasiguayo farmers have drawn criticism for displacing Paraguayan smallholders, cutting down forests, and spraying chemicals.
“They’re creating a country within our country,” Paraguayan campesino leader Tomás Zayas recently told The Paraguay Post, referring to the Brazilian colonists. “This is a time bomb that at some point is going to explode.”
The numbers are rocketing, with over 20,000 Brazilians flocking to Paraguay in 2025 alone.
Many of those queuing up overnight in Ciudad del Este to get their residency papers with MigraMóvil, a mobile government immigration service, bemoan Brazil’s high tax burden and left-wing government — and describe Paraguay as something like the promised land.
Some have speculated the incendiary billboards were a false flag: an attempt by leftists to stoke nationalistic rivalry and turn public opinion against this latest wave of settlers.
Others think the ads could be a dead cat: an attempt to distract attention from the latest dodgy manoeuvres involving the Zacarías clan, a local family enmeshed with Paraguay’s ruling Colorado Party and cushy jobs at Itaipú.
Of course, it’s possible that a disgruntled Brazilian simply decided to lord it over Paraguay through the power of public advertising.
Yet the speed with which pro-government press, influencers, and Colorado top dogs sought to pin the blame on CDE city hall suggests a ham-fisted attempt to smear Prieto and his party as antipatriotic mercenaries.
The charismatic former mayor currently polls at 45% approval — compared to a dismal 17% for Peña’s heir apparent, vice-president Pedro Alliana — and officials are now openly panicking that he could unseat the Colorados in 2028.
An ABC Color investigation has recently linked former Peña administration officials to a dirty digital campaign — conducted via a shady Colombian ad agency — that targeted independent journalists and public figures.
Despite a recent probe finding no evidence of wrongdoing, Peña is also facing renewed questions over why his declared wealth skyrocketed by 1600% over six years to reach more than $3m when he became president in 2023.
And with just days to go until party primaries on Sunday ahead of local elections this October, many will be hoping for a distraction from the negative headlines.
To adapt cui bono, the age-old investigator’s question: who benefits from the billboards?
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Also in this issue: Could the US launch strikes in Paraguay? · Minister admits delays to deficit target · Paraguayan tennis star in sexism scandal · World Cup fever grips Paraguay · New US ambassador named · Mr Beast pilot in marijuana bust · Journalists slam “dangerous rhetoric” by Peña · Guarani pop album launched
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