São Paulo.- The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, does not plan to attend the inaugurations of the presidents-elect, Abelardo de la Espriella, in Colombia, and Keiko Fujimori, in Peru, according to official sources.
“At the moment, his attendance is not planned” at either of the two ceremonies, a source from the Brazilian Presidency stated to EFE.
Fujimori, who accepted the victory last July 3rd in the presidential runoff in Peru after prevailing by less than 50,000 votes over leftist Roberto Sánchez, will take office next Tuesday.
According to the local press, Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira will lead the Brazilian delegation in Lima.
De la Espriella will assume power in Colombia on August 7, ending the term of Gustavo Petro, who maintained a close regional alliance with Lula.
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The landscape in South America
The victories of De la Espriella and Fujimori reinforced the advance of the right in South America, which already governs in Ecuador (Daniel Noboa), Bolivia (Rodrigo Paz), Paraguay (Santiago Peña), Chile (José Antonio Kast), and Argentina (Javier Milei).
In Brazil, the presidential elections will be in October and are shaping up to be a new clash between the progressivism embodied by Lula and the far-right championed by Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently disqualified and imprisoned for an attempted coup d’état.
According to the latest polls, Lula, who is seeking his fourth non-consecutive term, starts with an advantage over Flávio Bolsonaro, the main opposition candidate, ahead of a potential second round of the elections.
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In this context, the top leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) will focus in the coming weeks on the domestic agenda and on preparing the electoral campaign, which officially kicks off on August 16.
Earlier, on the 2nd, the PT will officialize its presidential candidacy, which will repeat with Geraldo Alckmin as a running mate, at an event in the city of São Paulo.
In this way, Lula’s next international commitment would be the United Nations General Assembly, which begins in September in New York, according to the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.
