Lula visits Cristina Kirchner, in house arrest, and urges her to maintain her “struggle for justice”

The president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, visited this Thursday, where the Argentine ex -president complies with house arrest, convicted of a cause for corruption. In the messages that each one spread after the meeting, which extended for almost an hour, Kirchner highlighted the political weight of the visit, while Lula emphasized his personal commitment to the former president and urged her to sustain “the struggle for justice.” The leader of Peronism, the main opposition force to the ultra -rightist government of Javier Milei, is considered a victim of lawfarea judicial persecution for political reasons.

The hug that Kirchner received from Lula contrasted with the tense relationship that the Brazilian maintains with Milei and that both leaders left exposed this Thursday in, reason for the trip to the Argentine capital: they presented their antagonistic visions of the block, barely crossed a cold handshake of hands and did not have any bilateral meeting.

The screams were heard from the surrounding streets. “Thank you Lula!” “Come Cristina!” When the Brazilian president arrived, at half past twelve, where Kirchner lives he was cut to traffic by a crowd. The militants mixed with security agents and journalists, in an incessant rumor of words in Spanish and Portuguese.

Lula entered accompanied by custodians and collaborators, and went up to the department of the second floor. “Go to the balcony!”, The militants asked and repeated from the street, hoping that the scene would be reiterated that, in the three weeks that has been stopped, the former president has turned into a rite and custom: the greeting to her followers. But that moment never came. At 13.25, Lula retired between applause and support screams.

Minutes later, Kirchner spread photos of the meeting on his social networks and pointed out: “Today we received fellow Lula in my house, where I am under house arrest by decision of a judicial power that long ago stopped hiding her political subordination.”

The former president raised a parallel between her case and the judicial case faced by the Brazilian president in her country. “Lula was also persecuted, they also made lawfare Until putting it imprisoned, they also tried to shut him up. They couldn’t. He returned with the vote of the Brazilian people and the forehead up. ”For Kirchner, who warned about the authoritarian drift of the Milei government, Lula’s visit” was much more than a personal gesture: it was a political act of solidarity. “

Lula tweeted after he found “the companion and former president Cristina Kirchner with force and desire to fight.” In his message, the Brazilian made a subtle reference to his own imprisonment, by emphasizing how important it is to feel the support of the followers at such times. The veteran politician has always stressed that those “Good morning, President Lula” and “Good evening, President Lula” who shouted daily from the camp in front of the police station where he was imprisoned was crucial to support the seclusion. The Brazilian president adds who, in addition to solidarity with her, has wished her “to remain good and firm in the struggle for justice.”

For Lula, who was almost 20 months imprisoned for a conviction for corruption that later, the visit had a strong personal component, without detracting from its political content. The relevance of the meeting with Kirchner generated an intense debate and discrepancies in the Brazilian government. While the wing linked to the Workers Party (PT), which Lula Leadra, defended that he meet in person, for solidarity with an ideological ally, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry would have preferred to avoid the meeting not to increase the tension with the Argentine president further.

It did not include the Kirchner visit, but an interval of a couple of free hours after the Mercosur summit. That was the moment that, after having requested authorization from the Argentine Justice, the Brazilian has taken advantage of to move to the house where the Peronist leader complies with a sentence. For this day, Lula has decided to put on his lucky tie, the colors of the flag of Brazil, green and yellow. It is unknown if he has chosen the ornament thinking about his encounter with Milei at the Mercosur Summit – where both collided – or in the visit to Kirchner and his possible repercussions in Brazil.

Before returning to his country, Lula met at the Brazilian embassy with the Nobel Peace Prize Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and the Peronist deputy Eduardo Valdés. According to the messages that the participants later disseminated, the dialogue dealt with the challenges for democracies in the time of the end of the extreme right; about South American integration and also on the conviction against Cristina Kirchner. Finally, a joint photo were taken: Valdés held a sign with the slogan “Lula Libre”, which was the axis of the campaign for his release, and the Brazilian president showed another poster inspired by that, with the claim “Cristina Libre”.