The veteran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 78 years old and in his third term as president of Brazil, is once again donning the suit of statesman to seek a negotiated solution to the crisis in Venezuela due to growing suspicions that Chavismo claimed a victory in the presidential elections of July 28 that would go to the opposition. The Brazilian and his country’s diplomacy have become the main node of multiple international movements with the aim of clarifying, with official records in hand, who won. And that the dispute be resolved peacefully and among Venezuelans, through negotiations between the Chavista government and the opposition.
This central role of Lula in the Venezuelan crisis has been recognized in a certain way by the 30 former Latin American and Spanish presidents, mostly right-wing, who on Monday dedicated an open letter to the Brazilian president – not to the American Joe Biden or the French Emmanuel Macron – in which they accuse Nicolás Maduro, 61, of “usurping the popular will” and exhort the Brazilian “to make democracy prevail” in the country. Lula has maintained intense contacts in recent days with both the American and French presidents.
Lula is also leading a three-way diplomatic initiative with the presidents of the other two large Latin American countries governed by the left, whom Maduro would in principle view with less reluctance than other interlocutors: Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of Mexico, and Gustavo Petro, of Colombia. A mediation that the Biden Administration officially supports. Of this trio, the Brazilian is, without a doubt, the one with the best international contacts. And, like his colleagues, he also has the capacity to engage in dialogue with both the Chavista government and the opposition led by María Corina Machado, 56 years old.
The message from this trio of countries to Maduro would be that they are suitable mediators to resolve the crisis amicably. But the first thing that Brazil, Colombia and Mexico demand in return (in what is already an outcry that includes many other countries and even Pope Francis and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner) is that the electoral authorities deliver the voting records of each of the polling stations and that there be an “impartial verification.”
“These minutes contain the factual truth [de la elección]are the first step in any process,” said a Brazilian Foreign Ministry source a few days ago. The former Argentine president implored Maduro: “I ask you, not only for the Venezuelan people, for the opposition, for democracy, [sino] For the sake of Hugo Chávez’s own legacy, let them publish the minutes.”
Nine days after the vote, virtually no one has recognised Maduro’s victory beyond China, Russia, Nicaragua and Cuba (and, to Lula’s annoyance, the Workers’ Party, which he leads). And, although calls, actions and messages from democratic leaders continue, there is still no trace of the official minutes. In the trio of left-wing governments, no one is talking publicly about deadlines for the moment.
Brazil has welcomed the message in which the Venezuelan opposition leader asked her followers on Tuesday to keep their ranks tight, to be patient, that there are times to protest in the street, and times when a tactical retreat is more effective. A more cautious tone than that shown, according to Brazilian diplomatic sources, the day before when she signed a statement asking the military to turn its back on Chavismo, which responded by opening criminal investigations against Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia.
Among the hallmarks of Brazilian diplomacy for decades are an aversion to any stridency, caution with gestures and statements, not being carried away by haste and keeping diplomatic channels open with all those involved in a crisis. On the table is the possibility that Presidents Lula, López Obrador and Petro will hold a telephone conversation with Maduro this week, either jointly or individually.
This Tuesday, the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, said that he is in permanent contact with the Brazilian Foreign Minister, Mauro Vieira, and insisted: “It is imperative that the minutes be delivered to recognize the election results, and [que] “Human rights must be respected.” The Brazilian took advantage of his state visit to Chile to discuss the issue with Gabriel Boric, whose firm positions and open criticism of Chavismo have left him out of the left-wing trio.
Venezuelan electoral authorities had just declared Maduro the winner without any evidence when Biden wanted to talk to Lula. In the subsequent joint message, they demanded the release of all the reports, warned that this is “a critical moment for democracy in the hemisphere” and, to support their idea, recalled that the democracies they both preside over — the two most populous in the Americas — suffered violent attacks in recent years. The Brazilian also spoke with the leader with the greatest political weight in the European Union, the Frenchman Macron. From the EU, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal have joined in the demand for transparency.
The Chavistas’ refusal to provide evidence of Maduro’s claimed victory (51% to 44%) is gaining time, but it also contributes to increasing suspicions of fraud and raising distrust even among friendly governments. The opposition, with the experience of the many obstacles it has encountered in this presidential race and united as never before in recent times, designed a clever strategy: it compiled copies of the ballots from 83% of the polling stations and uploaded this enormous database to the Internet. According to this information, Machado and his supporters maintain that their candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the elections by a landslide with 67% of the votes, compared to the current president’s 30%.
And while the phones were ringing, Brazil knew how to take advantage of an opportunity that opened up when the Venezuelan government decided to expel, in a flash, the entire diplomatic corps of Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay. It ordered its diplomats in Caracas to assume the representation of Argentina, in whose Embassy six close collaborators of Machado have been taking refuge for four months. With this decision, Lula sent a message to Maduro, in addition to making a conciliatory gesture of enormous political significance with the Venezuelan opposition and with the Argentine Javier Milei. Brazil has interests and adversaries, but it boasts of having no enemies.
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