Brazil’s president,Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has eschewed a one-on-one meeting with the Argentinian president,Javier Milei, during a trip to Buenos Aires, instead opting to visit Milei’s political rival, former presidentCristina Fernández de Kirchner, who isunder house arrest.
Lula was in the Argentinian capital on Thursday to attend the Mercosur summit.
He arrived at Kirchner’s flat – which in recent weeks has become something of a pilgrimage site for her supporters – at about 12.30pm and spent roughly 45 minutes there.
There had been speculation that the two might appear together on the balcony from which Kirchner, 72, often waves to sympathisers, but that moment never came.
Kirchner, who served as Argentina’s president from 2007 to 2015, was convicted over the irregular awarding of public road contracts to a businessman close to her family – a scheme that, according to the courts, cost the public purse an estimated $500m. The ruling also barred her from running for any political office.
Kirchner, who denied all the charges against her, was sentenced tosix years in prison for corruptionin June. Due to her age, judges granted her house arrest, but with a series of restrictions, including the requirement that all visits be authorised in advance – as was the case with Lula, whose visit was approved by a judge the day before.
Shortly after 1pm, Lula, 79, left the residence without speaking to reporters, greeting a few dozen supporters waiting outside before departing for the Brazilian embassy.
Kirchner, who claims to have been the target of political persecution,posted photosof the meeting and wrote: “Lula was also persecuted, they also used lawfare to put him in prison, they also tried to silence him. They couldn’t. He returned with the vote of the Brazilian people and his head held high. That’s why today his visit was much more than a personal gesture: it was a political act of solidarity.”
Earlier in the day, he had formally received the rotating presidency of Mercosur – the regional trade bloc whose full members are Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Bolivia in the process of joining and Venezuela currently suspended – fromMilei.
The near-total absence of a relationship between Lula and Milei was summed up in the closing moment of the summit: after shaking hands, Lula moved in for a hug, which Milei only registered belatedly – resulting in a stiff, uncomfortable embrace.
The two, whodelivered opposing speechesat the summit and hold conflicting positions on issues ranging from climate change – which Milei denies – to the Israel-Palestine conflict, have never held private talks.
Milei has in the past called Lula a “communist” and “corrupt”, and the Brazilian did not attend his inauguration.
In 2024, Milei left the Mercosur summit in Paraguay early to travel to Brazil and meet Lula’s main political rival, former president Jair Bolsonaro, during a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event.
Within Lula’s circle, the visit to Kirchner was seen both as a response to Milei’s gesture in 2024 and a symbolic act of solidarity, echoing the 580 days Lula spent in prison on corruption charges that were later overturned by the supreme court.
While Kirchner never visited Lula in prison, he was visited in 2019 by Alberto Fernández, who went on to win that year’s presidential election with her as his running mate.