The hesitation of Lula and Lio of Xi Jinping

The destiny of Venezuela in the 21st century depends on our victory on July 28. If you do not want Venezuela to fall into a bloodbath, a fratricidal civil war, produced by fascists, we guarantee the greatest success, the greatest victory in the electoral history of our people. These are the words of Nicols Maduro who, on the eve of the presidential election, recalled Caracazo, in 1989, when social movements rose up against the measures imposed by the right-wing Andrés Peres and he responded by calling on the military to massacre the demonstrators.

According to the interpretation of the Brazilian government, a fervent reader of the bourgeois press, Maduro threatened the population with a bloodbath if he was not re-elected. The mere idea that a leader would do this is absurd, because it would be more effective than publicly threatening the population not to hold elections, as Zelensky did in Ukraine, who does not seem to have realized that his mandate is over. a fact which, however, does not even appear in the press agenda.

Frightened by this statement, Lula formulated a sort of concise message to the neighboring president: “Maduro must learn: when you win, you stay, when you lose, you leave. Go and prepare to run for new elections. And more: I said [Nicols] Maduro believes that the only possibility for Venezuela to return to normal is a widely respected electoral process.

By widely respected electoral process, let's not be naive, we mean, at least, the election of an imperialist candidate, which is what we have seen since the result that gave victory to Maduro. The same Lula declared in the press that it was normal to question a close result, thus justifying the non-recognition of Maduro's victory by the OAS and neighboring countries, such as Peru, Chile and the Argentina. Let's not forget that he himself won a very close election, which seems to be the rule in times of strong polarization. Here, the Bolsonarista reaction was the invasion of public buildings in Brasilia, which, interpreted as a coup attempt, led to a series of arrests.

Lula, as he seems to have learned from the toucans, remains on the fence: he neither refused Maduro's victory nor recognized it. Can a country of the size and importance of Brazil really not have a clear position on this? Not having a position will already have a position. Lula, however, had a conversation with Biden about this and decided to join the minutes group: he wants to see the minutes, the detailed reports, a vote by one. Alright. Venezuela also uses electronic voting machines, like Brazil's, where the machine issues a paper receipt, which the voter checks and places in an old-fashioned ballot box. However, the editorials of Folha and Globo have already claimed that there was fraud and everyone wants to see the report.

Today we are confused, because in Brazil it is forbidden to question electronic voting machines. Simply questioning the possibility that this system is rigged is already a crime. Moreover, it must be said that Bolsonaro became ineligible precisely because he questioned the security of the system. And, speaking of the Devil, we must record in the national anecdote a curiosity: in Bom Dia 247 last Sunday, the commentators were enthusiastic about this receipt for the ballot box, considered as an additional security element, but no one didn't think to do it. This is Bolsonaro's request, the most ineligible, as they like to say.

Beyond all this indecision on the part of our government, the one who made the right choice was Xi Jinping, one of the first to congratulate Maduro on his victory. The Chinese leader wants nothing to do with it, does not claim interference in the other country and shows that he knows the issues very well. He said: Since taking office, [Maduro] led the Venezuelan government and its people to choose a development path suited to their national conditions, thereby achieving great progress in national construction. Moreover, China will, as always, firmly support Venezuela's efforts to safeguard its national sovereignty and dignity, as well as its sovereignty and Venezuela's just cause to oppose external interference.

Xi Jinping said what needed to be said. Brazil will demand this act, based on the doubts raised by research institutes linked to imperialism. By the way, it's worth reading the article in this journal which explains exactly who is behind these research companies and what their history is. Furthermore, Lula's hesitation is not very different from that which he expressed regarding the resistance struggle of the Palestinian people, reduced to a terrorist act.