Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, known as Itamaraty, said on Tuesday (20) that recent statements by Argentine President Javier Milei against the Brazilian elections amount to a "new and unacceptable attempt at external interference in the Brazilian democratic process". The official note responds to a social media post in which Milei commented on an excerpt of an interview with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and said he hoped the "last dirty trick" of Lula's campaign would not involve "stealing the election", according to G1.
The episode places Brazil within a pattern seen in other democracies in recent years, in which foreign leaders amplify, without evidence, distrust of other countries' voting systems. In its note, Itamaraty says Milei "repeats lies spread by those who lost the elections and led the failed military coup four years ago", calling the stance antidemocratic and incompatible with the behavior expected from the head of state of a friendly country.
For Brazil, the friction comes at a sensitive moment, five days before the presidential runoff scheduled for Sunday (25). Lula, of the Workers' Party (PT), faces Flávio Bolsonaro, senator, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro and candidate of the Liberal Party (PL), who has Milei's public endorsement. Itamaraty answered with an institutional defense of the electoral process, stating that Brazil's electronic voting system is provenly secure, has never registered irregularities and had its integrity confirmed by international observers already in the first round.
On the Argentine side, the move consolidates Milei's alignment with Brazil's Bolsonaro-aligned right and keeps the confrontational tone that has marked relations between Buenos Aires and Brasília since the libertarian took office. On the Brazilian side, the choice to respond through a formal note, without summoning the ambassador or announcing further measures, signals an intent to draw a public line without escalating the bilateral crisis days before the vote.
"The decision about Brazil's future belongs exclusively to the Brazilian people, who will express themselves freely at the polls, without any kind of external interference, on Sunday the 25th", the Itamaraty statement says.
According to G1, Milei's new attacks add to a series of diplomatic frictions between the two countries, the largest partners in the Mercosur trade bloc. The Argentine government has not yet responded to the Brazilian note.