In the final months of presidential terms, presidents in Latin America usually worry about shaping their future legacy. How they will be remembered and what their contributions will be that will leave a mark on the national and international arena. In the case of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in Mexico, his domestic agenda focuses on the so-called 4T, a transformation that seeks to go from a country of privileges to the creation of a more just and equitable society. On the international front, López Obrador has had very little prominence in international spaces and forums, perhaps in part due to his nationalist approach, and in part because the president of Mexico has an ambivalent relationship when the defense of democratic values is contrasted with certain ideological positions that still divide the world into left and right. This explains to some extent his attitude towards characters with clear authoritarian tendencies, such as Donald Trump, or his relationship with Russia and the invasion of Ukraine, or in the most recent case, his attitude towards the elections in Venezuela.
López Obrador is wrong when he claims that there is “no evidence of anything” regarding electoral fraud in Venezuela. The fraud is extremely simple and extremely crude. Unlike accusations of fraud such as the one in Mexico in 1988, the electoral records in Venezuela have existed since day one, with more than 80% of the results documented, publicly safeguarded and available in statistical and photographic form, thanks to a remarkable effort by the well-organized opposition. The electoral result caught the Maduro regime by surprise; they never imagined the extent of their defeat. On election night, the electoral authority, the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela, was the institution that actually implemented the fraud, which consisted of crudely inventing an imaginary percentage of votes for Nicolás Maduro that are not supported by any document, count, or computing system. In the following days, the records were not presented by the CNE, nor were the other procedures dictated by law followed. Nearly two weeks after the election, Nicolás Maduro’s regime has been threatening, harassing and detaining political activists in its desperation to prevent a popular mobilization in defense of the Venezuelan vote.
López Obrador decided from the start not to use the available evidence about what happened in Venezuela, but to follow his political instincts. He did not allow Alicia Bárcena to participate in the OAS meeting to establish the organization’s position on this electoral contest. He declared that recognizing the opposition’s victory would be a form of interventionism. Although he has participated in the joint statement with Presidents Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Luiz Ignacio “Lula” da Silva of Brazil, demanding that the official results be presented disaggregated by voting center and table (the equivalent of sections and polling stations in Mexico), in reality he has not played a leading role in this critical moment for Latin American democracy.
At this point it is extremely doubtful that the Venezuelan courts or the CNE will present the true data. It is increasingly likely that, if they do present any kind of minutes or documents, these will be false, created by hacking that do not correspond to the majority of copies of the minutes already in the possession of organized citizens. It is doubtful that they will be able to reproduce the hash originals, encryption codes, produced by voting machines on election night. The Venezuelan election simply had so many safeguards protecting the citizen’s vote that they now prevent the government of Nicolás Maduro from generating any credible evidence of his victory.
In the morning press conference on August 8, López Obrador said that his intention is “that there be an authentic democratic vocation, that there be no interventionism, no desire for imposition, no ideological burden, but that the will of the Venezuelans be respected, what they decided.” López Obrador today has a historic opportunity to leave an international legacy that he has not had until now. He could be the architect of a new democratic era in Venezuela, which will hopefully inaugurate a countercurrent with respect to the democratic recession that is being experienced throughout the world. With the credibility of being a leader of a country that has always had a foreign policy based on non-interventionism; with the cards of sharing ideologically with the left the aspiration to create more just societies; with his historic struggle to defend the vote given by citizens to his candidates, he has all the elements to push Maduro towards the concession of his defeat.
López Obrador would be putting pressure on Venezuela to defend democracy, and not for geopolitical reasons of imperialism, not for ideological ties, nor for personal interests. He would be helping to avoid violence and repression in Venezuela, as well as a new exodus of millions of Venezuelan migrants with all the humanitarian implications that this has. And he would be resoundingly resolving for his historical legacy that, when he had the opportunity, he defended democracy, putting his moral sense above his political instincts.
Sign up for the free EL PAÍS Mexico newsletter and to WhatsApp channel and receive all the latest news on current events in this country.
#López #Obradors #chance #history #promoting #democracy