President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) said on Friday (16) that the current government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela is “unpleasant” and has an “authoritarian bias”, but “it is not a dictatorship”.
“I think Venezuela lives a very unpleasant regime. I don’t think it’s a dictatorship, it’s different from a dictatorship. It is a government with an authoritarian bias, but it is not a dictatorship as we know so many in this world,” Lula said in an interview with Rádio Gaúcha, in Porto Alegre.
So far, the PT candidate has not yet recognized the result of the Venezuelan elections, and said that he will only do so when the minutes are presented.
“I can only recognize that it was democratic if they show proof that there was an election and that so-and-so had so many votes, that siclano had so many votes,” Lula reaffirmed on Friday.
Lula also added that he disagrees with the note released by his own party at the end of July, which celebrates the “reelection” of Nicolás Maduro.
“No, I don’t agree with the note. I don’t think the same as the grade. But I am not from the leadership of the PT,” he said. And he added: “The party is not obliged to do what the government wants. And no government is obliged to do what the party wants.”
The PT candidate stressed that the neighboring country is “interesting” for Brazil, as it has kilometers of border shared with us. According to Lula, it is a country that “Brazil has reached almost R$ 5 billion in trade surplus, which can be a great partner”.
Political crisis in Venezuela
The political crisis in Venezuela has been escalating among the international community. On the one hand, Maduro says he was elected with 52% of the votes, but refuses to present the voting minutes. On the other, the opposition – represented by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González – insists that there was fraud and that it won the election with 67% of the votes.
