The frenetic diplomatic activity to overcome the crisis in Venezuela is not giving any respite, with no solutions in sight. The presidents of Brazil and Colombia, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro, insisted on Saturday afternoon that the credibility of the electoral process “can only be restored through the transparent publication of disaggregated and verifiable data” in a joint declaration, in very measured language, which comes two days after the Supreme Court ruling that confirmed the supposed victory of Nicolás Maduro and after at least two conversations since then between the only leaders who persist in mediating to find a negotiated solution.
Lula and Petro, who have avoided recognizing any winner in the July 28 elections without burning bridges with Chavismo, are also calling on all those involved to avoid acts of violence and repression, without mentioning by name either Maduro or the opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, who is being summoned this Monday by the Prosecutor’s Office to answer for the publication of the electoral records with which the opposition claims that it actually won the elections by a wide margin – it collected more than 80% of the records, which show that González Urrutia obtained 67% of the votes against Maduro’s 30%.
Brazil and Colombia reiterate that they are still waiting for “the National Electoral Council to release the minutes broken down by voting table,” a request that is now a clamor from the international community, and which they had already alluded to in the joint statements that their foreign ministries had previously signed with Mexico. The statement comes two days after the ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) that ratified, at Maduro’s request, his alleged victory without showing any credible evidence of that result. Lula and Petro also mention on two occasions the Barbados Agreements between the Government and the opposition, “whose spirit of transparency must be respected.”
Four weeks before the elections, the diplomats of Brazil and Colombia are juggling an avalanche of internal criticism of Lula and Petro for not strongly condemning Maduro, his authoritarian drift and the repression of opponents and protesters, as another leftist president like Chile’s Gabriel Boric has done. On Friday, the United States and a dozen Latin American countries — including Argentina and Chile — published a joint statement rejecting the “supposed verification” of the results by Venezuela’s highest judicial body, and the European Union also hardened its tone this Saturday, at Spain’s request, by declaring that it will only recognize “complete” results verified “independently.”
“The political normalization of Venezuela requires the recognition that there is no lasting alternative to peaceful dialogue and democratic coexistence in diversity,” the Brazilian and Colombian leaders insisted this Saturday in a new call for a negotiated solution, and reiterated their willingness to serve as facilitators. In a message that seems directed at the United States and is also a nod to Chavismo, they reiterated that the unilateral sanctions against Venezuela “are contrary to international law and harm the population of the sanctioned countries.”
Both Lula and Petro reestablished the always difficult relations with the Bolivarian Republic, a neighbouring country, at the beginning of their respective governments. For Colombia, in particular, it is vital that the crisis be resolved peacefully, since it shares a long and porous border with Venezuela and is by far the main host country for the Venezuelan diaspora, with almost three million migrants on its territory.
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Last week, both parties publicly suggested to Maduro, who is entrenched in declaring himself the winner without showing the minutes, the possibility of a transitional coalition government and new elections with guarantees as a way out of the crisis. The Colombian even listed a series of steps that include the lifting of all sanctions against Venezuela, a general national and international amnesty, total guarantees for political action, a transitional cohabitation government and “new free elections.” An idea that has been rejected by both Maduro and the opposition.
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