Brazil, Colombia and Mexico's "third way"
Aug. 2, 2024
Brazil, Colombia and Mexico called for an "impartial verification" of the results of Venezuela's presidential election, yesterday. “Controversies over the electoral process must be resolved through institutional means. The fundamental principle of popular sovereignty must be respected through the impartial verification of the results,” the text reads.
It is the latest diplomatic salvo in the midst of an ongoing crisis after President Nicolás Maduro declared himself the victor of Sunday’s elections. The opposition said the government’s results are fraudulent, and international efforts have focused on pushing Maduro to publish full detailed results from each polling station.
The Brazil, Colombia, Mexico alliance of leftist governments in response to Venezuela’s electoral crisis is a novelty in the region’s diplomatic scene. The three countries have shifted from past unconditional support for Chavismo, but also emphasize respect for national sovereignty and mistrust of fora like the OAS, which is seen as a stand-in for Washington in the region — a “third way.” (BBC)
The three countries’ focus on requesting detailed voting results — the tally sheets — “allowed the opposition to gain time and support by presenting copies of their votes by pointing out fraud, according to La Silla Vacía. Diplomatic coordination has been ongoing for months. (El País)
Government officials from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have been in constant communication with Maduro’s administration to convince him that he must show the vote tally sheets from Sunday’s election and allow impartial verification, reports the Associated Press based on a Brazilian source.
The non-confrontation strategy contrasts with previous efforts from right-wing governments in the region, the Lima Group, which pressured Maduro’s government with diplomatic isolation.
Other international actors, including the United Nations, have backed the call for Venezuela to publish full, detailed vote results. “The difference in the current moment, in relation to previous elections and in terms of diplomacy, is that different actors seem to be aligned around a very concrete demand that falls outside ideological parameters,” reports Nacla.
Outside of backing negotiation efforts, the Washington toolbox has only a few tired options when it comes to pressuring Venezuela, according to El País: sanctions and legal measures against leaders.
Yesterday the U.S. government said González had defeated Maduro in Sunday’s vote and called for negotiations to ensure a peaceful transition of power. “We congratulate Edmundo González Urrutia on his successful campaign,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
But the announcement is only likely to anger Maduro and hinder negotiations, reports the Washington Post. Indeed, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador characterized it as “imprudent” this morning, saying “it does not help to resolve things.”
Rather international pressure on Maduro will rely particularly on ”leaders such as Petro who still have the ear of decision-makers in Caracas,” argued Benjamin Gedan in World Politics Review earlier this week.
Any possibility of a negotiated transition will require a united opposition front and international support to provide incentives for members of the regime to cede power, argues Tamara Taraciuk Broner. “Even amid top authorities’ knee-jerk reaction to cling to power through force, a political negotiation is possible if it is grounded in a solid legal framework that provides legally viable incentives sustainable over time,” she writes in an analysis for the Wilson Center.
Repression
With all eyes on the country’s security forces, which remain loyal to Maduro, the opposition must “maintain large, boisterous, and effective street-level protests,” write Ryan C. Berg and Christopher Hernandez-Roy in CSIS. But it is difficult against a backdrop of intensifying repression by the Maduro government against critics.
In an op-ed published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, opposition leader María Corina Machado said she is “hiding, fearing for my life, my freedom, and that of my fellow countrymen.” The opposition has irrefutable proof of its victory, she wrote. “Now it is up to the international community to decide whether to tolerate a demonstrably illegitimate government.”
She is laying low and limiting public appearances since Maduro called for her arrest, reports El País. In the middle of the night, masked assailants ransacked Machado’s headquarters, they broke down doors and hauled away valuable documents and equipment, reports the Associated Press.
Machado called for Venezuelans around the country to protest tomorrow morning.
Yesterday Maduro announced that two maximum security prisons will be quickly reconditioned to house and “reeducate” people who were arrested in post-election protests this week. In a televised video, detainees were forced to carry out a “chavista salute”. (Mercopress) Detainees are being sentenced in virtual hearings, and lawyers have not been granted access to their defendants, reports Efecto Cocuyo.
More Venezuela
It’s been a long week talking about “tally sheets.” The Associated Press explains all there is to know about the voting machine printouts and opposition efforts to verify election results using them.
Mexico
A commission of Mexico’s lower chamber of Congress advanced with the President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s constitutional reform proposals yesterday. The first four measures are among the least controversial — youth support, retirement, minimum wage and workers’ housing — and was unanimously approved. (El País)
Among the many concerns with the judicial portion of AMLO’s constitutional reform plan, electoral authorities say the cost of electing all the country’s judicial officials would be massive, similar to that of a presidential election. Morena lawmakers funding would be guaranteed in the bill. (Animal Político)
Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum will continue AMLO’s tradition of morning press conferences — “mañaneras” — according to El País.
“Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the notorious alleged co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, appeared in an El Paso, Texas courtroom in a wheelchair on Thursday after pleading not guilty last week to drug trafficking charges following his dramatic arrest,” reports Reuters.
Regional Relations
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez has “used his political muscle for years to corrupt US policy toward Cuba,” his retirement “may bode well for relations with Cuba” if Kamala Harris wins the White House, write William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh in The Nation. “As vice president, Harris has said little about Cuba, but her work to reduce the root causes of migration by boosting Central American economies has no doubt given her an appreciation of how economic sanctions against Cuba are spurring more and more people to flee their homeland.”
Guatemala
Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora has been in jail for two years, as of last Monday. He says charges against him are politically motivated retaliation for his corruption investigations, and that he has been tortured, subject to humiliation and degrading treatment while detained. (El País)
This week Amnesty International declared Zamora a prisoner of conscience and demanded his immediate release.
Colombia
Colombia's EMC guerrilla group said it would not launch attacks in the city of Cali during the upcoming COP16 UN biodiversity summit, as it had previously threatened. (AFP, Guardian)
Regional
132 companies with combined revenues of $1.1 trillion have called on governments to enact tougher policies to reach a U.N. goal on halting nature loss by the end of the decade, ahead of the COP16 meeting that will take place in October in Colombia. (Reuters)
“Growing rates of informal immigration in Latin America make the region increasingly vulnerable to human trafficking for organ removal. But the criminal dynamics underlying this predatory industry are poorly understood due to underreporting and other difficulties facing authorities trying to combat the problem,” reports InSight Crime.
Cases of Oropouche, a little-known disease spread by midges and mosquitoes, have surged in areas where the virus had not been previously recorded. A total of 8,078 cases had been confirmed in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Cuba by the end of July, with doctors in the region urged to be vigilant, reports the Guardian.
Brazil
The rush for cassiterite has pushed up profits and commodity exports in Brazil, but has become a new environmental and policing problem as “special forces units of Brazil’s Ibama environment agency must play a cat and mouse game with the thousands of illegal miners pouring into Yanomami reserves,” reports the Guardian.
Haiti
“The UN has called for the deployment of international security forces in Haiti to be accelerated after a report that at least 1,379 people were killed or wounded in gang warfare and 428 people kidnapped in the country between April and June this year,” reports the Guardian.
Honduras
Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla Valladares, former chief of the Honduran National Police, was sentenced yesterday in a U.S. court to 19 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in a conspiracy to protect shipments of cocaine destined for the United States, reports the Associated Press.
Argentina
Pope Francis’ meeting with an Italy-based nun who carries out social work was a masterful, if diplomatic, rebuke to Argentina’s Milei administration, according to El País. The nun Geneviève Jeanningros, is the niece of Léoni Duquet, one of two French nuns kidnapped and thrown from a plane by Argentina’s last dictatorship. National lawmakers from President Javier Milei’s libertarian party visited Alfredo Astiz, a convicted human rights criminal, who was sentenced to life in prison in relation to nuns’ case.
Paraguay
A bill that seeks to regulate non-profit organizations in Paraguay is a threat to freedom of association in the country, according to Amnesty International.
Olympics
Chinese trainers are the secret weapon powering Mexico’s Olympic medals in archery — El País
Is this article readily available in Spanish? I’d like to forward it to a Venezuelan friend. Thanks!