MAYARA PAIXÃO AND RICARDO DELLA COLETTA
The elected president of Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi, is expected to arrive this Thursday (28) in Brasília for a meeting with President Lula (PT).
The meeting between Orsi and the PT member should take place on Friday (29), according to people with knowledge of the agenda interviewed by the report.
The Uruguayan said this Wednesday (27) that the central theme of his meeting with Lula will be the possibility that the bidding process for work on the bridge over the Yaguarón River, on the border between the two countries, will be accelerated.
Orsi, 57, from the left and center-left Broad Front coalition, won the elections on Sunday (24). His victory marks the return of the Front -historically close to the PT- after five years of center-right government, under the leadership of Luis Lacalle Pou.
Lula was one of the first leaders to congratulate Orsi on his victory. The day after the election, the PT member called the Uruguayan president-elect and said he would visit the country for the Mercosur summit in early December. On that occasion, he will meet with both Orsi and former president José “Pepe” Mujica.
Orsi’s election was highly celebrated in Brasília. According to an interlocutor from the Lula government, the situation has changed completely, and there will be a much more intimate political dialogue; In the words of another, there will be a great rapprochement and a hint of enthusiasm in South America. Everyone refers to Orsi as the heir of Mujica.
Thus, government interlocutors say they hope that Orsi will have Mujica, who governed from 2010 to 2015 and whom he calls maestro (teacher), as an oracle. More specifically, they mention joint action in Mercosur.
Under reservation, a diplomat says there is now support from three of the bloc’s five countries. It is a mention of the fact that the governments of Brazil, Uruguay and Bolivia (Luis Arce) will be more aligned against the advancement of Javier Milei’s Argentine ideology and the timid actions of Santiago Peña’s Paraguay to confront Buenos Aires. In any case, Bolivia still does not have decision-making powers within the bloc.
