Lula withdraws from Kast inauguration amid presence of Flávio Bolsonaro
The reversal came hours after it emerged that Flávio Bolsonaro, a likely challenger to Lula in October’s presidential election, would attend the event as a guest
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has canceled a planned trip to Chile to attend José Antonio Kast’s inauguration on Wednesday and will instead be represented at the ceremony by Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira. Brazilian officials said the change was due to “scheduling reasons.”
The absence carries political weight because Lula had confirmed only days earlier that he would travel to the handover ceremony in Valparaíso. Brazil’s foreign ministry had framed the visit as part of the institutional relationship with Chile, despite the clear ideological gap between Lula and Kast, a leading figure on Chile’s right.
The reversal came hours after it emerged that Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro and a likely challenger to Lula in October’s presidential election, would attend the event as a guest. El País reported that in Brasília the overlap was seen as politically awkward for Lula, although the government did not publicly connect the two developments.
Flávio Bolsonaro has increasingly positioned himself as the Brazilian right’s main candidate for 2026. A Datafolha poll published last week showed him in a statistical tie with Lula in a potential runoff, while the former president had directly backed his son’s bid for the presidency.
Until the cancellation, Lula’s attendance in Santiago had been read as a pragmatic diplomatic gesture. In late January, Lula and Kast held their first bilateral meeting in Panama on the sidelines of the International Economic Forum for Latin America and the Caribbean. After that meeting, Kast said the talks “go beyond any political or ideological difference” because the priority was to improve citizens’ quality of life.
The episode also fits into a broader regional context of growing polarization. Last weekend, Donald Trump gathered a dozen right-wing Latin American leaders in Florida, reflecting the region’s ideological realignment, while leftist governments such as Brazil, Colombia and Mexico were absent from the event.
Despite the cancellation, Brazil will still have high-level representation at the inauguration through Mauro Vieira, one of Lula’s closest foreign policy aides. The arrangement preserves ties with Santiago while sparing the Brazilian president from appearing at a ceremony shaped by a guest list and political symbolism that would have been uncomfortable for the Planalto Palace.
