President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Thursday that it was serious that Corina Yoris, an opposition candidate in Venezuela, was unable to register for the next elections, reiterating criticisms made by the Brazilian government last Tuesday in a note from Itamaraty.
Lula praised the fact that María Corina Machado, the original candidate, had nominated someone to replace her and compared it to her case in 2018, but criticized Yoris’ situation.
“It is serious that the candidate could not have been registered. She was not banned by the courts. It was something that caused harm to a candidate,” Lula said when asked about the case during a press conference together with French President Emmanuel Macron, in Brasilia.
On Tuesday, after Yoris failed to register as a representative of the Democratic Platform, an opposition group, the Brazilian government issued a statement expressing concern about the performance of Venezuela’s elections and saying the Barbados agreement was at risk.
The agreement, negotiated last year with the participation of several countries, including Brazil, establishes objectives that Venezuela must achieve to have free elections, in exchange for the suspension of sanctions imposed by the United States.
The suspension of María Corina Machado, according to sources spoken to by Reuters, displeased the guarantor countries but was considered inevitable in the current climate of the country. However, blocking her replacement has crossed a dangerous limit in the Brazilian government’s assessment.
Lula recalled having had a long conversation with Maduro during the last meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), in which he spoke about the need for elections in Venezuela to be truly democratic.
“I said that the most important thing to restore normality in Venezuela was to not have problems in the elections, that the elections were held in the most democratic way possible. It is the most important thing that Venezuela returns to the world with normality”, he recalled .
The Brazilian government’s note was harshly criticized by Venezuelans, who accused “Itamaraty officials” of being responsible for the text and of “interfering” in Venezuela’s internal politics, as well as copying North American positions.
The text, however, was approved by Lula before being published. The president himself, during a meeting held on Monday afternoon, decided that a harsh response to Venezuela would be necessary. Palace aides also tried to contact Nicolás Maduro’s government to warn that Brazil would publicly criticize the trial, but received no response, a source said.
“I think that if the elections are not democratic, Brazil will watch them on television, because I don’t want anything better or worse, I want elections like the ones held in Brazil, in which everyone can participate. Whoever wants to participate, participate. Those who lose cry, those who win laugh and democracy continues.”
The French president, together with Lula, said they fully agreed with the Brazilian’s position and praised his role in the Venezuelan process. France is one of the countries that participated in the negotiations with the Venezuelans.
“The picture presented in these elections cannot be considered democratic. We will do everything possible to convince President Maduro to reinstate all the candidates and to have more transparent elections. We will not panic, but the situation is serious and has worsened with the final decisions,” Macron said.
Source: Terra
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