Milei tests his right-wing magic on Flavio Bolsonaro’s shaky campaign in Brazil

Fresh off a corruption firestorm at home that sank his popularity to the lowest level of his Presidency, Argentina’s Javier Milei is flying straight into an uproar over bank fraud in Brazil.

The risk to his reputation may be a price worth paying if it helps to topple his arch-rival and Latin America’s most prominent leftist. Argentina’s libertarian leader is set to appear Saturday at a Liberal Party convention in São Paulo that will formally launch Flávio Bolsonaro’s bid to unseat President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil’s October vote.

On Thursday, Brazil’s Supreme Court authorised police to look into Bolsonaro’s alleged ties to the man at the centre of a massive bank fraud probe roiling Latin America’s biggest economy. He has denied wrongdoing. The investigation threatens to further upend Bolsonaro’s candidacy in the October election, as the right-wing senator already trails Lula by 7 percentage points in an AtlasIntel poll published this month.

It’s the highest-stakes bet in the region by Milei, who has sought to make himself a force on the global right, and basked in the conservative victories of Peru’s Keiko Fujimori, Colombia’s Abelardo de la Espriella and Chile’s José Antonio Kast. It echoes the winning wager he made in early 2024, when he flew to the United States to back Donald Trump on the heels of meeting senior Biden administration officials in Buenos Aires.  

Lula leads Bolsonaro by five points, 48 percent to 43 percent, in a run-off scenario, according to a Datafolha poll published Friday. The survey, which interviewed 2,004 people and has a margin of error of two percentage points, shows little change from the previous two months. It was conducted from July 22 to 23, amid the new allegations and opening of the police probe.

Milei also plans to meet with São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas, whom many investors saw as an ideal market-friendly challenger to Lula before Bolsonaro entered the race. The encounter suggests Milei wants to deepen ties to the Brazilian right beyond the Bolsonaro family.

The Brazil trip comes just as Milei tries to turn the page after his top aide, Manuel Adorni, resigned over allegations of illicit enrichment last month. Adorni’s real-estate purchases and lavish travel are under investigation. Corruption remains Argentines’ top concern – and rooting it out has been one of Milei’s signature pledges to voters.

Argentines overwhelmingly disapproved of how Milei handled the corruption scandal involving his former Cabinet chief, according to a separate AtlasIntel poll published days after the onetime aide resigned. His approval rating dropped to an all-time low of 36 percent after the news came to light in March, recovering to around 40 percent last month.

In backing Bolsonaro at the dawn of Brazil’s official campaign period, Milei is also delivering a bit of payback to Lula, stoking a fierce regional rivalry that has played out in elections, global forums and courtrooms over the past three years.

A long-time ally of the Argentine left, Lula deployed a team of nearly two dozen campaign strategists to help Milei’s opponent during the country’s 2023 election. That followed Milei’s pledge to avoid doing business with Brazil, which he lumped into a group of “socialist” nations, during the race.

The pair have maintained frosty relations ever since. At a Group of Seven leaders summit in 2024, Lula and Milei stood on opposite sides of the family photo in Italy, steadfastly avoiding each other. 

Milei made his first trip to Brazil – Argentina’s largest trading partner – just weeks later. But instead of meeting Lula, he attended a conservative political conference with former President Jair Bolsonaro, Flávio’s father. It nearly turned the feud into a full-blown diplomatic crisis until Milei avoided direct criticisms of Lula at the event.

The Brazilian returned the favor last year after winning approval from an Argentine judge to visit former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Milei’s chief domestic rival, who’s under house arrest for a corruption conviction.

Milei had planned a similar sit-down with Jair Bolsonaro while in Brazil. But a Supreme Court judge blocked the meeting last week after barring the former president, also on house arrest for plotting a coup after losing to Lula, from receiving political visitors.

The geopolitical stakes are high in Brazil’s vote. When Milei took office, he was the lone conservative governing a major South American economy. After leftist losses in Chile, Colombia and Peru, it’s Lula who is isolated now.

That’s made him an even bigger target for Milei and other right-wing figures, including Trump. The US president, who counts Milei among his closest regional allies, has repeatedly injected himself into elections as he seeks to reassert Washington’s dominance over Latin America.

Bolsonaro will head into the official launch of his campaign Saturday having finally won the support of his father’s wife after months of feuding. Michelle Bolsonaro, an influential political figure in her own right, had resisted endorsing her stepson because she said he had been disrespectful to her. She changed her mind after he publicly apologised this week, and the leader of the Liberal Party expressed hope that her influence could expand the candidate’s appeal. 

It remains to be seen whether she or Milei can reverse Bolsonaro’s slump in the polls. Lula, for one, appears unconcerned about Milei’s latest foray into Brazilian politics. His government sees it as unlikely the Argentine’s support for Bolsonaro will be decisive in the election, according to an official who asked not to be identified discussing private views. 

Despite political tensions between them, Argentina and Brazil have continued to cooperate on trade and other major issues, the official said.

Milei has downplayed the effects of the rivalry at times, saying in a January interview that they have an “adult relationship.”

But after meeting Bolsonaro in Buenos Aires last month, Milei poked Lula with a colourful reference to the conservative momentum beating back against what was once known as the region’s “pink tide” of leftists.

“The blue wave is coming to Brazil,” he said in a social media post, “led by Flávio Bolsonaro.”