Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has put the effectiveness of diplomacy and the importance of democracy in Latin America to the test.
Today marks three weeks since the elections in the Caribbean nation that have shaken the region and forced countries to take a position in the conflict.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric was the first to speak of fraud in the early hours of July 29, after the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro’s victory.
Although he has not recognized the opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia as the winner of the elections, his voice was firm and relevant for being a left-wing president.
Nine other countries on the continent, including the United States, have declared González Urrutia the winner.
Meanwhile, not surprisingly, Cuba, Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua congratulated Maduro.
But all eyes are on other Latin American governments considered left-wing and which, as opposition leader María Corina Machado has insisted, have an open channel of communication with Maduro: Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.
It was surprising that the three nations, which have great influence and size in the region, did not recognize the alleged victory of the ruling party, demanded the publication of the electoral records and spoke – in the case of the Brazilian President, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva – of an “authoritarian bias” in Venezuela.
But three weeks before the elections, patience seems to be running out, as evidenced by the viral intervention of the Uruguayan Ambassador to the OAS last Friday.
“I have my manual and everyone will have their own on how to get out of dictatorships. But you don’t get out by congratulating them, you get out by saying: ‘Sir: respect the result that is evident, empirical, factual, and Edmundo González Urrutia won. What don’t you understand, Mr. Maduro?!'” said an excited Washington Abdala, who apologized for his “passionate tone,” which, he warned, is the one that should be used.
“And the serious thing about this, when we are faced with state terrorism, is that some people read human rights in one way when it happens in some places and when it happens in others they read them in another way. They are the same human rights!”
He was not the only one. Sonia Cavallo, Argentina’s ambassador to the OAS, called for an end to the demand for the publication of the minutes and for González Urrutia to be recognized as the winner of the elections.
“Argentina, along with other governments on this continent, has recognized the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as the winner of these elections. And it is time for this organization to do the same, instead of asking the National Electoral Council to work as it should have done but did not,” he urged.
According to Tamara Taraciuk, director of the Inter-American Dialogue’s rule of law program in Washington, the time has come to “call things by their name.”
While Brazil and Colombia voted in favor of a resolution in the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Friday – Mexico did not attend the session – demanding the publication of the election results and an impartial verification of them, days before they presented proposals for a way out of the crisis that include repeating the elections or establishing a joint government between the parties.
“I think it is very difficult for (Andrés Manuel) López Obrador, (Gustavo) Petro and Lula to defend Maduro if they want to continue saying that they are democratic governments, that they are governed by democratic principles,” Taraciuk said in an interview.
“They are asking the Maduro government to present the minutes that support the alleged electoral result of its victory, and they have not recognized Maduro, that is very good. But it has been almost three weeks, there is no evidence of the announced electoral result. At this point they should call things by their name and say that there was electoral fraud in Venezuela.”
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, president of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), agrees that the evidence, or rather, the lack of evidence, is clear.
“The main advance (in these three weeks) is that the version, the narrative of the Maduro government that it won an election without presenting evidence, has been dismantled. In the Venezuelan case, the lack of evidence is the evidence,” he told REFORMA.
“By now we all know that these electoral records that have been requested both nationally and internationally will probably not be presented, because presenting them would imply showing that very probably or in fact President Nicolás Maduro was not re-elected for his third term.”
According to WOLA’s president, the Venezuelan crisis is testing the very notion of the importance of democracy in Latin America.
“Latin American leaders who always give speeches and statements in which they present themselves as democratic leaders cannot endorse a self-declared victory without evidence from a political leader like Nicolás Maduro,” he said.
Today, the human rights specialist said, there is an important diplomatic machinery activated to resolve the Venezuelan case.
“Our own contacts with diplomats show that the Foreign Ministries are talking, that is to say, there is no doubt that the Colombian Foreign Minister and the Brazilian Foreign Minister and probably the Mexican Foreign Minister are in talks, and some of them are in turn talking with the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry,” he said.
“This does not necessarily mean that they speak directly with President Nicolás Maduro, but they do speak with the Government through the correct channel, which is the Foreign Ministry. The diplomatic machinery is activated.”
But with the Venezuelan regime increasingly isolated, how can Maduro be persuaded to step down? With carrots, Taraciuk said.
“There is an opportunity for Mexico, Brazil and Colombia to play a role, which is to show Maduro that he has very few options and that the option of governing in a North Korea in South America is not an alternative that any of them will tolerate, and that it is not convenient for him, because he will not be able to govern without access to the markets,” he stressed.
But, he clarified, it must be a coordinated and regional response that includes the United States and not necessarily with sanctions or threats of economic sanctions.
“Carrots must be included: legal incentives given to some individuals in power so that they see that they have a better future in a democratic transition than blindly clinging to the orders of those who have no alternative,” he explained.
In Venezuela, Taraciuk said, there are two major types of crimes: violations of human rights and crimes linked to corruption, drug trafficking and money laundering. Although in the case of human rights, he said, there are red lines that cannot be crossed, and certain people to whom democratic governments cannot offer guarantees of impunity, an alternative could be given in cases of corruption, drug trafficking and money laundering.
“Although there is a principle in international law that investigations must be carried out and that there should be no impunity, prosecutors have enormous discretion on how to do so, so they do have the possibility of granting certain guarantees of reduced sentences and tax benefits in exchange for concrete steps towards a democratic transition, especially in the United States, where the main investigations into these events are taking place,” explained the rule of law specialist.
“And since power is not monolithic in Venezuela, meaning Maduro is not (Hugo) Chavez, there is an opportunity to create a rupture, offering benefits to certain individuals in the power structures so that they no longer support the regime.”
The truth, says Jiménez Sandoval, is that not all ideas and initiatives to resolve the Venezuelan crisis have been heard. Lula proposed this week repeating elections or a mixed government. Petro launched the idea of a pact like the one they had decades ago in Colombia between conservatives and liberals.
“One has the impression that ideas are being put on the table, and it is not clear which ones have been agreed upon with Nicolás Maduro, but in any case the idea of a repeat election has clearly not been agreed upon with the Opposition,” he said.
Machado and González Urrutia considered this initiative a “lack of respect.”
“I think we will continue to see different ideas and proposals, because in Venezuela whoever is elected President does not take office until January 2025, so we have to prepare for a marathon, because, on the one hand, there is an elit
e in power that refuses to give up power, but there is also a position of citizens who are not willing to accept repression, fear and the presentation of a result that has no evidence, so I think the electoral history of this election is not over yet,” concluded the WOLA president.
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