Lula praises the opposition’s unique candidacy against Maduro and says he didn’t read the letter sent by Milei

BRASILIA – The president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said this Tuesday, the 23rd, that the opposition’s decision in the Venezuela to unite around a single candidate against the dictator Nicolás Maduroof whom the PT member is an ally.

The Unitary Democratic Platform announced that it will support the diplomat’s candidacy Edmundo González Urrutiaafter the Chavista regime prevented the registration of female candidates Corina Yoris It is Maria Corina Machado.

“The issue of Venezuela, something extraordinary is happening, the entire opposition has come together, they are launching a single candidate and there will be elections,” said Lula, at a breakfast with journalists. “Whoever won takes office and governs, and whoever lost prepares for other elections, as I prepared after three defeats in Brazil.”

The president defended political normalization in Venezuela and reaffirmed Brazil’s interest in following the presidential elections on July 28. According to Lula, there is a lot of attention abroad and a desire to monitor the elections. Last week, the White House ordered the resumption of economic sanctions on Caracas for non-compliance with the Barbados Agreements.

“If Brazil is invited, it will participate in monitoring the elections with the expectation that when these elections are over people will return to normality,” said Lula. “I hope that Venezuela returns to normality, that the US lifts the sanctions and Venezuela can welcome back the people who are leaving Venezuela due to the economic situation.”

The president declined to comment on details about the proposal presented to him last week in Bogotá, by Colombian President Gustavo Petro. Colombia suggested that Venezuelan political forces hold a plebiscite and formalize an agreement on democratic guarantees against political persecution after the election in Caracas.

Brazil endorsed Petro’s proposal in a joint statement. Also an ally of Maduro, he stated that it is necessary to guarantee the life, safety and political rights of those who are defeated.

Weeks earlier, Lula and Petro, in an unprecedented gesture, criticized Chavismo’s ban on the registration of female opposition candidates. Lula said that the blockade was “serious” and stated that there was no reasonable explanation on the part of the Venezuelan government to block its opponents. Petro spoke of an “anti-democratic coup”.

A week after receiving a new letter from the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, the PT member stated that he was not aware of the contents yet.

The letter was delivered by Chancellor Diana Mondino, Milei’s first representative to make an official visit to Brasília, in hand to Minister Mauro Vieira (Foreign Affairs).

“My chancellor traveled and I still haven’t seen the letter,” said Lula. “I don’t know what Milei is saying in the letter.”

Despite Lula’s excuse, the Estadão found that the letter has already been sent to Palácio do Planalto. Minister Mauro Vieira traveled with Lula to Bogotá, the capital of Colombia.

The president said that, after reading the content, he is interested in telling the press what the president of Argentina wants to talk about with Brazil. Diplomats claim that Milei refers in the letter to a meeting with Lula, in a generic way, without proposing a date.

Lula and Milei are ideological rivals and have accumulated a history of offenses and provocations over the past year, which diplomatic bureaucracies are now trying to alleviate, in favor of a more pragmatic relationship, as shown by the Estadão.

In previous letters, Milei has already spoken about meeting with Lula – something he rejected during the election campaign -, but the date of a meeting remains open. Milei is viewed with suspicion at the Palácio do Planalto, and Lula’s advisors claim that he owes the PT member an apology in public.

The president confirmed that he will go to Chile in May to meet President Gabriel Boric in Santiago and participate in the second edition of the meeting of South American presidents, now organized by the Chilean.

The first meeting launched the Brasília Consensus, in May 2023, on Lula’s initiative. He planned to recreate Unasur (Union of South American Nations), but failed. At the time, Boric and the president of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, criticized Lula for rehabilitating Nicolás Maduro and minimizing authoritarian abuses by the Chavista regime.

Lula preached integration of infrastructure and politics in the region. The PT member himself admitted that regional integration is currently “very difficult”, due to political differences in Latin America.

He even mentioned that in past terms he met left-wing presidents in the region and cited Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Michelle Bachellet (Chile), Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Cristina Kirchner (Argentina).

“It was a progressive South America. If you take it today, you notice a setback due to the growth of the extreme right, racism, xenophobia, the persecution of minorities, the agenda of customs with retrograde issues. Brazil is a pole of resistance to all this”, stated the PT member.

“Either we act as a bloc, tune our viola, and enter the arena of international negotiations, or if we think ‘ah, I’m more friendly with the USA, it will favor me’… That’s nonsense. Each country has a priority interest in winning. If we pursue an alliance policy, we will respect differences and make our economy grow. Brazil needs to do this with all countries, despite the political difficulties we have today. It’s very difficult. But we have to try, this is Brazil’s role”, said Lula.

Lula also stated that he wants to promote an international meeting of “democratic presidents” to debate the advance of the far right. The meeting would take place in September, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York. He said he had already discussed the idea with Pedro Sánchez, Spanish Prime Minister, and Emmanuel Macron, President of France.

The PT member said that he is considered “persona non grata by the extreme right around the world” and that they say that Lula needs to be “destroyed”.