Argentina President-Elect Calls for Brazil's Lula to Be Freed

Juan Pablo Spinetto, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Alberto Fernandez has set the stage for his first diplomatic tiff even before he takes office as Argentine president. An hour after his election win, he called for Brazil’s left-wing legend Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva to be freed from prison.

Fernandez told supporters in Buenos Aires that Lula, who governed Brazil from 2003 through the end of 2010, was unfairly jailed. While he made similar comments during the campaign, his decision to raise it in the election aftermath risks friction with Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, a political rival of Lula.

Fernandez, whose win puts a left-wing political movement known as Peronism back into national power in Argentina, visited Lula at his prison in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba in July. Bolsonaro meanwhile has warned Brazil could leave the Mercosur trade bloc if Argentina pivots to the left after the elections.

Lula is serving nearly nine years for corruption and money-laundering. Last month he rejected prosecutors’ request that he leave prison for house arrest, in accordance with a Brazilian law that lets prisoners with good conduct and who have already served one-sixth of their jail time complete their sentence under a less-restrictive system.

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https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/argentina-president-elect-calls-for-brazil-s-lula-to-be-freed-1.1338373