MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Milei stays silent on Lula’s victory as Kast and Peña congratulate him

Neither the president nor Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno had issued a statement on the result, according to the Argentine press

Argentine President Javier Milei had not congratulated Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on his re-election in Brazil by Monday, unlike other right-wing South American leaders such as Chile’s José Antonio Kast, Paraguay’s Santiago Peña and Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz. Milei, who publicly backed Senator Flávio Bolsonaro during the campaign, met his cabinet at the Casa Rosada first thing in the morning.

Neither the president nor Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno had issued a statement on the result, according to the Argentine press. “We have to wait,” official sources said. During election night, Milei shared social media posts questioning the extension of voting hours in Brazil, and on Monday he shared a message against the “average leftie”. Bolsonaro does not recognise Lula’s victory and has said he will seek to annul the election.

Kast, for his part, said he had spoken with Lula: “I have just spoken with the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and congratulated him on the election result.” The presidents of Mexico, Panama and Uruguay also congratulated the Brazilian leader, according to the newspaper La Nación.

Within the Argentine government, Bolsonaro’s defeat came as a surprise. “The rejection of Bolsonaro was very strong,” an official told the Noticias Argentinas news agency. At the Casa Rosada, the result is attributed to Lula’s latest economic measures, the shorter working week and the rejection the candidate generated among women and young people. A political figure who regularly visits government headquarters told Infobae the defeat weakens the idea of an international right-wing alliance that Milei had promoted. The Peronist opposition, by contrast, celebrated the re-election: Cristina Kirchner, Axel Kicillof and Sergio Massa linked it to Argentina’s 2027 elections.

Relations between the two presidents are strained. Milei repeatedly called Lula a “thief” and last week said he hoped he would not “steal” the election. In July, Brazil recalled its ambassador in Buenos Aires for consultations after earlier insults from the Argentine president. Brazil is Argentina’s main trading partner, and the two countries are Mercosur’s largest economies.