Joe Biden and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the presidents of the United States and Brazil, the two most populous democracies in the Americas and both victims of recent coup attacks, jointly demand that Nicolás Maduro make public the complete official records of the results of Sunday’s presidential elections at all polling stations, according to information released by their governments after a 30-minute telephone conversation. Biden and Lula agreed on the need for Venezuelan electoral authorities to “immediately release complete, transparent and detailed data on voting at polling stations.” They agreed that the Venezuelan elections represent a “critical moment for democracy in the hemisphere,” and pledged to continue to coordinate closely on the issue.
The serious crisis that arose after the Venezuelan elections due to suspicions of fraud and Maduro’s refusal to disclose the documentation that supports the result that gave him victory has motivated this telephone contact.
The electoral authorities, linked to Chavismo, have declared Maduro re-elected (with 51.2% compared to 44.2% for the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia) without making public the minutes of all the polling stations that the opposition, foreign observers and a large part of the international community demand as proof. The telephone call between Presidents Joe Biden and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva lasted 30 minutes, according to the Brazilian Presidency.
In the interview, Lula also recommended to the opposition that if after seeing the minutes they are not satisfied with the result, they can turn to the Venezuelan justice system, ignoring the fact that it is under the control of Chavismo.
The conversation between Presidents Biden and Lula takes place while the situation on the ground is worsening by leaps and bounds. Both the opposition and the government have called on their supporters to take to the streets. The repression and riots have already caused the first deaths and numerous arrests, including a prominent opposition member.
The telephone contact between Biden and Lula comes the day after prominent officials of the US Administration expressed their skepticism regarding the electoral results released on Sunday by the Chavistas, and reserved, when they have more detailed information, the option of imposing new sanctions on Venezuela.
According to Reuters, citing anonymous sources, these punishments would be individual, such as restrictions on entry into the United States for officials involved in the electoral process. The same sources also indicated that these sanctions could be escalated depending on events.
At her daily press conference, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday that the conversation between Biden and Lula was expected to “touch on a wide range of issues,” but did not hide the fact that Venezuela would be the central issue on the agenda. “The world is watching,” she added, while defining the “political violence” of the repression of opposition protests in the Latin American country as “unacceptable.”
In a call with reporters in Washington, State Department officials recalled Monday that “Venezuelans have the absolute support of the international community to restore democracy in their country,” before listing the American countries, with special emphasis on Brazil, that have requested access to the electoral records.
The United States and Brazil, in addition to the UN, the OAS (Organization of American States), the European Union and the governments of numerous countries have demanded that Maduro publish the official count of each voting table to verify the result disclosed by the National Electoral Council.
The Brazilian Foreign Ministry warned Maduro on Monday in a measured statement that his victory would only be legitimate if he published the minutes. The statement avoided any direct criticism and praised the fact that the election had taken place peacefully. For Brazil, it is a priority to preserve its capacity to engage in dialogue with all parties involved in the crisis.
In fact, Lula’s personal envoy to Venezuela to be his eyes in these disputed elections, former foreign minister Celso Amorim, met after the voting day with the two presidential candidates, Maduro and González Urrutia, who the opposition considers the winner by a landslide. Nothing has been revealed about the meetings.
Brazil has a special role in this crisis because, unlike the United States, it is not an antagonist of the Venezuelan government. Lula maintained a very close relationship with Hugo Chavez and is critical of the international sanctions imposed on Caracas, but he also expresses reservations about the authoritarian drift of Chavismo.
The veteran Brazilian president inaugurated his third term with an eloquent attempt to break Maduro’s diplomatic isolation. To do so, he invited him to a summit with the rest of the South American presidents in Brasilia. But neither that gesture nor the subsequent negotiations between Chavismo and the opposition, the US, Norway and other countries to hold elections with guarantees and to have the sanctions lifted were sufficiently fruitful to fully achieve either of the two objectives.
Cuba, Nicaragua, China, Russia and Iran stand out among the countries that have recognised the results. On the other hand, there are many countries that are still waiting for the documentation that supports the proclaimed victory of Chavismo. Some are openly critical, such as Milei’s Argentina, Biden’s USA or Boric’s Chile. Others, such as Brazil, are more like friends who express their differences gently.
The growing international pressure as the hours passed after the elections due to the opacity of the vote count irritated the Venezuelan government so much that it decreed the expulsion of the ambassadors of seven countries. The foreign minister, Yvan Gil, announced the forced departure of all diplomatic personnel from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay.
The Brazilian government has not recognized the election result for now. The foreign ministry decided that Brasilia’s ambassador to Caracas should not attend the ceremony to proclaim Maduro as re-elected president in order to make it clear that it does not recognize the result until it has evidence to support the numbers that the authorities are using. It maintains the same position in response to the opposition’s allegations.
And Lula has not yet made any public statements about the disputed election results, an attitude that contrasts with the criticism or support of almost all other Latin American leaders. He will only break his silence once he has spoken in person with his envoy to Venezuela, veteran diplomat Celso Amorim, according to the Brazilian press. His return is scheduled for Tuesday.
However, the Workers’ Party, led by Lula, has put him in an awkward position by recognizing Maduro’s victory and describing the criticized elections as “democratic and sovereign.”
The relationship between Lula and Maduro, which was never as good or intense as with Chavez, has soured in recent months in the face of what Brasilia sees as the Venezuelan’s growing inflexibility. Both presidents have maintained public friction over the electoral process. Lula insists, in reference to Bolsonaro and Maduro, that whoever loses the election should go home and prepare for the next vote, as he did three times before winning the Brazilian presidency for the first time in 2002.
Lula reestablished diplomatic relations with the Maduro government as soon as he returned to power in 2023. His predecessor, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, broke them off by recognising Juan Guaidó as interim president, like the US, the EU and dozens of other countries.
In an interview with local television RedeTV, Lula declared his preference in the upcoming November elections in the US in February: “Although I am not an American voter, I think it is obvious that Biden is a greater guarantee for the survival of democracy in the world and in the United States,” he said. It has not yet been revealed whether the conversation between the two on Tuesday discussed the succession of Kamala Harris at the head of the Democratic Party.
A year earlier, the Brazilian president was received at the White House in a meeting that was sold as an update on relations between the two countries. “Our strong democracies have been tested lately, very tested, and our institutions are in danger,” Biden told reporters alongside Lula in the Oval Office, referring to the recent assault by thousands of Jair Bolsonaro supporters on the institutions of Brasilia. “But both in the United States and in Brazil, democracy prevailed. We stand united, we reject political violence, and we value our democratic institutions very much.”
Follow all the international information at Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.