MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cristina Kirchner meets Lula’s digital strategist in a bid to replicate his comeback in Argentina

Kirchner, who is serving a final six-year sentence for corruption under house arrest and is barred for life from public office

Former Argentine president Cristina Kirchner on Monday received Brazilian lawmaker André Janones, creator of the WhatsApp channel that helped Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva win re-election, in Buenos Aires, as the Peronist opposition looks to Brazil for keys to defeating Javier Milei in the 2027 presidential election.

Janones, a federal deputy for the state of Minas Gerais, runs “Lula’s Army”, a WhatsApp channel with more than 10.4 million followers to whom he sends daily instructions to share and amplify content on social media, a strategy credited with part of Lula’s comeback against Flávio Bolsonaro on October 25. On the day of the Brazilian election, the Peronists launched their own “Peronism’s Army”, which had passed 80,000 followers after Janones’ visit.

Kirchner, who is serving a final six-year sentence for corruption under house arrest and is barred for life from public office, posed with Janones in a photo he shared on social media with the message: “Beside Cristina Kirchner to tell the world that yes, we can defeat the far right.” Lula’s channel was told to share the post, which drew more than 60,000 interactions within an hour. Janones also met Sergio Massa, the Peronists’ last presidential candidate, but not Buenos Aires province governor Axel Kicillof.

The visit came amid an internal Peronist struggle over the 2027 presidential candidacy, in which Kicillof, backed by several governors and mayors, faces the Kirchner and Massa camp. The former president, who hopes to overturn her conviction before international courts, said in an interview with The Washington Post published on Monday that she could run again: “When I recover my political rights, why not?”

Janones, re-elected as a deputy in October, has ruled out a ministerial post in Lula’s new government and returns to Brazil on Tuesday. His team denied he plans to work on the campaign of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez ahead of the November 29 general election.