The possibility of the far-right coming to power in Argentina is ringing alarm bells in Brazil and other parts of the world. “I won’t meet Lula da Silva. He is corrupt “That’s why he was imprisoned and he’s a communist,” Javier Milei said, as if Jair Bolsonaro was giving him his own words. The economist, who will compete in the second round with Peronist Sergio Massa on November 19, blamed Lula. days ago Intervening in the Argentine campaign. Anarcho-capitalists, great friends of the Bolsonaro clan, also expressed their dissatisfaction with the presence of Brazilian advisors in Massa’s team.
Once again, Milei confirmed something beyond this country’s desire to move away from Brazil, its main trading partner in the region. “I just won’t do business with China, I will not do business with any communists. I am a defender of freedom, peace and democracy. Communists are not going there. The Chinese do not enter there. Putin is not going there. Lula doesn’t go in there. We want to be the moral lighthouse of the continent,” said the Peruvian writer and journalist on his television program. Jaime Bayly.
According to the São Paulo newspaper FolhaLula told his interlocutors that the Brazilian Government “I can’t go crazy” With Milei’s eventual presidency. However, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad acknowledged that this scenario would be a threat to the region.
Response of the Argentinian ambassador
Argentina’s ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Scioli, was quick to defend the Workers’ Party (PT) leader. “It was stated by the Brazilian Supreme Court of Justice that Lula was not corrupt. The one who talks about the use of justice for political purposes.” Scioli considered it “absurd” to describe the president of the neighboring country as a communist. The strongest rebuttal is found in his own government, “starting with the vice president.” The right-wing center Geraldo Alckmin.
“For a presidential candidate to say, ‘I won’t have a relationship, I won’t talk to Lula,’ Doesn’t seem like merit to me at all. but quite the opposite.” In this sense, Scioli emphasized that Milei’s courage to cut Argentina’s preferential relations with Brazil or to talk to Lula “has nothing to do with the reality of integration that we are experiencing now.” I have been at the Argentine embassy in Brazil since the beginning of the government. Alberto FernandezHe reestablished ties with the neighboring country in 2020 and refused to meet Bolsonaro for almost two years.
“Halloween is coming and a ghost is roaming Argentina. The specter of a far-right government. “Javier Milei’s costume is scarier than Jason and Freddy Krueger,” wrote the Rio newspaper’s traditional humor column, Sensacionalista. Or Globe. “We Brazilians have had to live with this horror for four years, we know the ending of this movie.”
Journalistic irony contains a truth. Beyond the outbursts of the far right, events in Argentina are followed with concern in Brazilian political and economic circles. Dollarization of the economy and threat of implosion Southern Common Market (Mercosur) This was taken very seriously, to the point that Lula himself led international support in favor of Massa, such as Argentina’s entry into the BRICS, which initially included China, Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil. Once, Lula testified Joe Biden Concern about the danger posed by the existence of a mix of Donald Trump and Bolsonaro under the chairmanship of Argentina. In line with this view, part of the team designing Lula’s 2022 election campaign came to Buenos Aires to support Massa.
Warning from 100 economists
In this context, 100 internationally renowned economists made the following warnings: “Devastating consequences Milei’s election victory. Frenchman Thomas Piketty Jayati Ghosh (India) was a co-author of this declaration, signed by Serbian-American Branko Milanović and former Colombian Minister of Finance José Antonio Ocampo. Anarcho-capitalist proposals are “fraught with risks that make them potentially very harmful to the Argentine economy and the Argentine people.” Experts recognize that “simple solutions can be attractive” for a country mired in a deep crisis where poverty stands at 40 percent.
But as the far right has put it, the consequences of a program that encourages major cuts in public spending and the liquidation of state assets, as well as the loss of monetary sovereignty, “could be, in short, very harmful.” These measures will increase.already high levels of poverty and inequality, It can lead to a significant increase in social tensions and conflicts.