President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke this Tuesday (30) with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, about the situation in Venezuela after the presidential elections last Sunday (29). According to the Planalto Palace, Lula reiterated the need to publish the electoral minutes of the election and Biden agreed with the importance of disclosing the documents.
The head of the Brazilian government said that he has been following the electoral process through special advisor Celso Amorim, who was sent to Caracas last week. Lula reported that Amorim met with President Nicolás Maduro, who was running for reelection, and Edmundo González Urrutia, the opposition candidate, and reiterated Brazil’s position of continuing to work towards the normalization of the political process in the neighboring country, which will have positive effects for the entire region. The meeting was attended by Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has not yet released the minutes to prove the result announced in the elections, which gave victory to Maduro with 51.21% of the votes, against 44% for Edmundo González.
Part of the opposition, some countries and organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS) question the fairness of the election and ask for the publication of the minutes that allow the votes to be audited. The government of Nicolás Maduro accuses part of the opposition and some countries of incite an alleged coup d’état in the country against the election result.
After the elections, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that awaiting publicationby the Venezuelan CNE, of “data disaggregated by polling station, an essential step for the transparency, credibility and legitimacy of the election result”.
On Tuesday, CNE headquarters, statues and other public institutions, such as city halls and PSUV (government party) headquarters, were attacked and vandalized by groups dissatisfied with the election result that gave victory to President Nicolás Maduro. The Itamaraty issued consular alert asking that Brazilians residing in, in transit or with a trip scheduled to Venezuela remain informed about the security situation in the areas where they are and avoid crowds.
In a statement released on the social network X, the White House said that the United States continues to call on Venezuelan electoral authorities to release “complete, transparent and detailed” voting results. “This is especially critical given that there are clear signs that the election results announced by the National Electoral Council of Venezuela do not reflect the will of the Venezuelan people as expressed at the polls on July 28,” the statement said.
Partnership
In the conversation between the two presidents, which lasted about half an hour, Biden confirmed his presence at the G20 Summit, in November in Rio de Janeiro, and said that the partnership between Brazil and the United States should continue to grow.
The Brazilian president invited Biden to participate in the meeting of democratic countries against extremism, which will be held next September in New York, on the sidelines of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly.
Lula congratulated Biden on his “magnanimous” decision to withdraw from his bid for reelection in the United States and wished the country’s democracy success in the presidential elections in November.
