Lula receives President Alberto Fernandez and promises to visit him in Buenos Aires

“Alberto”, shouted Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. There was Alberto Fernandez, president of Argentina, recently arrived from Buenos Aires on a lightning visit. The Argentine took a plane on Monday morning to São Paulo to personally congratulate Lula, whom he considers a friend, for his electoral victory over Jair Bolsonaro. The Brazilian made a place for him on his agenda, very tight on the first day as president of Brazil, and thus repaid that visit that Fernandez made him in 2019 in prison. After a meeting alone in a São Paulo hotel, Fernandez confirmed that Lula’s first international trip will be to Buenos Aires, before his inauguration, scheduled for January 1, 2023.

“I have had the great joy of meeting again with my dear friend and president-elect of Brazil, Lula. Everyone knows my relationship with Lula and she did not want to be absent today knowing the difficult times she had to go through. Today is a day of vindication”, said Fernandez after the meeting in a hotel in the largest city in Brazil. “We talk more about the future than the past,” she said.

Lula da Silva spent much of his first day as president-elect receiving congratulations from presidents and high-ranking foreign officials, including the American Joe Biden. But she made a hole in the agenda, very tight, to receive Fernandez. The Argentine took a plane with a small delegation very early on Monday, barely receiving the Brazilian’s approval. With the security issue resolved, a complex point because it was an unofficial visit by a head of state, he landed at noon in Sao Paulo.

The visit has been important for Fernandez. Lula da Silva will help repair the battered relations between Argentina and Brazil, in low hours due to the poor personal relationship that the Argentine maintains with Bolsonaro. The situation worsened especially during the campaign. Bolsonaro chose Argentina as an example of a failed country, devastated by the economy and victim of a communist government only comparable to Cuba or Venezuela, a caricatured profile that in Buenos Aires was followed almost with sarcasm.

Join EL PAIS to follow all the news and .

But there is also an extra component, of almost personal dimensions. Fernandez is going through low hours in Buenos Aires, besieged by the power disputes that are bleeding the Peronist coalition that co-leads with its vice president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Lula, as a friend of both, can serve as a bridge to restore the lost dialogue.

Subscribe here to the newsletter THE COUNTRY America and receive all the informative keys of the current situation in the region.