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Jair Bolsonaro and Mauricio Macri at the 54th Meeting of Mercosur Heads of State on 17 July 2019. Argentina Presidency / Handout via REUTERS

Jair Bolsonaro has never hidden his preference for conservative Mauricio Macri, without fear of interfering in Argentine politics. During a visit near the border between the two countries, he did not hesitate to give his opinion on the result of the primaries.

With our correspondent in São Paulo , Martin Bernard

" The band Christina Kirchner, which is the same as that of Dilma Rousseff, the same as that of Maduro and Chávez, and Fidel Castro, showed the tip of his nose here. If this rotten left returns to power in Argentina, we could have a new refugee crisis in southern Brazil, "Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Monday (August 12th).

Jair Bolsonaro talks about the state of Roraima, in northern Brazil, where tens of thousands of Venezuelans crossed the border following the collapse of the country's economy. According to him, the victory of Alberto Fernandez in the October elections - with former president Christina Kirchner as a running mate - would cause a similar economic disaster in Argentina.

In Argentina, Macri's setback to Sunday's primaries caused a collapse of the peso (-18.76%) and the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange (-37.93%).

Created in 2009, the system of general primaries for all political parties, the same day and in a national poll, is an Argentinean peculiarity. It was a life-size poll before the general election in October, political parties have chosen this year, for reasons of electoral strategy, to invest in advance their candidates as the law allows them.