BUENOS AIRES, (Reuters) – Brazil’s popular but scandal-weary former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva endorsed Argentina’s ruling party presidential candidate yesterday, shoring up Daniel Scioli’s credentials with the political left a month and a half before the election.
Scioli, governor of Buenos Aires, is from the same party as outgoing President Cristina Fernandez. He usually presents himself as more moderate than she, but Wednesday was an exception when he appeared at a rally with Fernandez and Lula.
“This is a state that is present in places where problems cannot be resolved by the markets,” Scioli said in introducing Lula, whose image has been dented this year by scandals involving his party.
Scioli normally strikes a less ideological tone while campaigning.
Fernandez, preceded as president by her late husband Nestor Kirchner, is part of a leftist Latin American bloc once led by Lula and the late Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. She is barred from seeking a third consecutive term in the Oct. 25 election.
