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Wwhen Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the Venezuelan presidential election last week, there was immediate shouts and accusations of fraud. Maduro was trailing significantly in several polls, and the National Electoral Council (CNE) did not provide access to voting breakdowns as he is legally required to do.
While much of the rhetoric from Maduro and supporters of opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia has been red-hot, the region’s left-leaning governments have not gone anywhere – despite many long-standing connections with the Maduro’s administration. This is a marked change in the remains of the “pink tide” of leftist governments that dominated Latin American countries in the 90s can provide a way for the crisis, and achieve a democratic transition in Venezuela.
The governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico they led many other nations in demanding that electoral authorities release the vote counts for every electronic voting machine, but refrained from accusing Maduro of wrongdoing – they did not use the term “fraud” or denounce the Venezuelan regime. unacceptable post-election human rights violations. They apparently hope to bring Venezuela’s government and opposition parties back to the negotiating table.
This is perhaps the highest example of the role of mediator that the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, seeks on the world stage, and a demonstration of what his “active non-alignment” diplomacy looks like in practice
If Lula’s strategy – taken from the larger block – works, will be a resounding affirmation of his widely misunderstood “third way” diplomatic strategy, which seeks to promote the economic problems of developing countries without taking sides in the conflict of the great powers in the current war global cold 2.0. It will also be a moral compass in a region where democracy is threatened by a backsliding led by elected leaders. The strategy could serve as an important electoral bulwark against the rise of far-right movements that threaten Latin American democracy.
This poorly studied approach to the Venezuelan crisis represents an alternative to the dominant approach of the past: with Latin American countries denouncing which side was ideologically convenient and the United States implementing economic sanctions. While the Biden administration strongly supported the negotiation efforts in Venezuela, Washington unilaterally recognized the opposition candidate González as the winner of the election on Thursday.
This kind of posturing has done little, and unreserved support from Western states has often provided cover for governments to make authoritarian moves. Moreover, in a multipolar world where Venezuela can rely on the support of Russia and China – both of which have already congratulated Maduro on his re-election – it risks dragging the region into larger international conflicts.
Leftists in the region have traditionally maintained a soft spot for Cuba, and have, for years, refrained from fully reporting democratic revolution in Venezuela. This tolerance reflects a bilateral tradition influenced by the cold war in the region that has always tried, in a wrong way, to differentiate the authoritarianism of the left and the right, allowing that the violations committed in the name of an ideology could be justified in some way facing the wider battle between the two sides. The position must be understood against the background of the cynical intervention of the United States in Latin America which has long supported violent military dictatorships.
Statements this week from LulaPresident of Colombia, Gustav Peterpresident of mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obradorthe elected president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaumpresident of Chile, Gabriel Boricformer Chilean president Michelle Bachelet and former Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner they are the most visible sign of a profound change in the Latin American left, away from these ideological commitments.
To have even former traveling companions, such as Lula and Kirchner, push back against Maduro’s electoral fraud lay bare growing gap between Latin America’s leftist democracies and “leftist” dictatorships. The new stance of the old leaders partially answers generational turnover. Today’s young voters grew up in the pink tide period and have not experienced the social devastation caused by the neoliberal economic policies of the Washington consensus. In Chile, Colombia and Brazil, they elected leaders whose platforms focused on the climate crisis, social justice and reproductive health.
The statements of the left leaders also hint at a manifesto for the new left of Latin America, with democracy and social justice as cornerstones, framed as a historical continuity. Indeed, Petro and Kirchner invoked the legacy of Hugo Chávez to ask Maduro to publish detailed election results. They also emphasized the harmful effect of US sanctions on Venezuelan democracy. The decades-long US embargo on Cuba is detested by the region’s left, and the reference marks a ratification of its historic anti-imperialist stance.
Right-wing leaders in the region have rightly highlighted the crimes against humanity committed by Maduro. But few have expressed the same concern for human rights abuses committed by ideological allies, such as the massacre of protesters under the interim government of Jeanine Áñez in Bolivia in 2019, or the electoral fraud that Juan Orlando Hernández exploited in a second presidential term in Honduras in Honduras. 2017. The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, called Maduro a “communist dictators“, but he welcomed until The Savior, apparently unconcerned about the systematic human rights violations that form the backbone of President Nayib Bukele’s controversial security policies. Thus, his indignation will have little weight in this crisis.
The new stance of the left leaders represents a moral line which is consistent with the ideology they profess; how they respond to increasing government repression will be a test of this change. In any case, the goal of making a true accounting of the election results cannot be achieved without engaging Maduro’s government.
