Brasilia.-Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday referred once again to the critical situation facing Venezuela following the electoral fraud with which Chavismo intends to snatch victory from the opposition led by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia.
“I think Venezuela has a very unpleasant regime. I don’t think it’s a dictatorship, it’s different from a dictatorship,” the president of the South American giant told Radio Gaúcha, adding: “It’s a government with an authoritarian bias, but it’s not a dictatorship like so many dictatorships we know in this world.”
He then said: “What I think is that Venezuela is a very interesting country for Brazil, it is a country that has kilometers of border with Brazil, it is a country in which Brazil has achieved a trade surplus of almost 5 billion, it is a country that could be a great partner for Brazil in the construction of a political force.”
Lula made these statements after speaking on Thursday about the need for Venezuelan authorities to release the results of the elections of July 28 and suggesting two possible solutions to the crisis: the formation of a coalition government or the holding of new elections.
Yesterday, he referred to the Venezuelan elections in an interview with Radio T and said that “until now” it is not known who won the elections because the minutes were not released and the result could not be verified independently.
The Brazilian leader said that Nicolás Maduro, who was declared the winner by the National Electoral Council (CNE), “knows that he owes everyone an explanation.” However, he said that he is working with Mexico and Colombia to find solutions, and suggested two ideas: the formation of a coalition government that includes members of Chavismo and the opposition, or the calling of new elections.
“There are several options. One is a coalition government, a coalition government with the opposition. There are many people in my government who did not vote for me and others who did. Everyone is going to participate in a (coalition) government,” he explained, adding: “Now there is a disagreement (…) between those who want me to say that the opposition was victorious, I cannot say that it was victorious because I have no data and much less can I say that Maduro was victorious because I have no data.”
“Maduro has six months left in office. If he has common sense, he could even call new elections, creating an electoral committee with opposition members and observers from around the world,” Lula continued.
The Brazilian leader said that his relationship with Maduro, which was very good in the past, has “deteriorated” as a result of the “deteriorating political situation in Venezuela.”
Maduro’s proclaimed victory for a third consecutive term has been rejected as a “fraud” by the majority opposition and questioned by several foreign governments and international monitoring groups. Since then, the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have been maintaining contacts to help find a solution to the crisis.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has strongly rejected Brazilian President Donald Trump’s proposals to repeat elections or form a coalition government.
Machado explained that it is not possible to compare the situation in his country with that of other nations where, according to his statements, government officials are not involved in criminal activities.
The leader of Vente Venezuela stressed that in her country the problem is different and more complicated: “This is not the case in Venezuela,” said Machado, making it clear that in her country there is a very particular situation due to the involvement of members of the regime in criminal matters.
Their rejection was based on the perception that Lula’s proposals do not fit the Venezuelan reality.
“We must be careful with the examples of coalition governments that are mentioned,” he said, making clear reference to the fundamental differences between the situations in other countries and that of Venezuela.Infobae.
#Lula #Silva #Venezuela #authoritarian #unpleasant #regime
2024-08-20 12:49:42
