BUENOS AIRES — Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived in Argentina on Thursday night as part of a diplomatic offensive aimed at reasserting Brazil's regional leadership role against a mounting challenge by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Though Lula has denied any effort to undermine Chavez's petro-diplomacy, South American analysts see the Brazilian president responding to his Venezuelan counterpart's oil-funded strategy to become a regional power broker -- a role Lula believes should rightly be his because his nation is Latin America's largest and most populous.
"Brazil is returning step by step to the political initiative," said Julio Burdman, a political analyst here. "That includes balancing the aspirations of Chavez to lead the region."
The Brazilian president is said to be troubled by Latin America's creeping division into pro- and anti-Chavez blocs. These splits also reflect starkly differing attitudes toward Washington, Chavez's archenemy.
The ostensibly warm relations between Chavez and Lula mask an intense competition for political and economic influence, experts say. Venezuela has used oil revenue to win allies, but Lula is employing diplomacy and his prestige as an up-from-the-factory former union leader who is now Brazil's widely respected head of state.
"Lula has arrived on the field, putting Chavez in his box," former Argentine diplomat Andres Cisneros wrote in the Argentine newspaper Ambito Financiero.
Two-nation journey
Lula touched down in the Argentine capital after a visit in Santiago with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, another leader with close ties to Washington who is wary of Chavez's growing sway.
While in Chile, the Brazilian president said he agreed with the assessment of popular former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos that \o7chavismo\f7, as the Venezuelan leader's charismatic vision of socialism is sometimes called, was illusory.
"Neither do I believe in the existence of \o7chavismo\f7," Lula told reporters in Chile. "I believe in the existence of a South American conscience."
The Brazilian president has been a strong proponent of South American integration, a vaguely defined goal that most leaders on the continent endorse in theory. But Lula has departed from Chavez's anti-U.S. vision of integration, failing to embrace, for instance, the Venezuelan's plan for a "Bank of the South," a kind of alternative to U.S.-dominated lending agencies such as the World Bank.
