'Very Unpleasant Regime': Fellow Leftist Lula Criticizes Maduro Amid Election Dispute

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a potential mediator in the ongoing electoral dispute in Venezuela, spoke harshly on Friday about the government of President Nicolas Maduro, calling it a "very unpleasant regime" with an "authoritarian slant"—perhaps the first time he has been so publicly critical of his fellow leftist.

Venezuala has been in turmoil since its presidential election on July 28, pitting Maduro against opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, came to a disputed result. The electoral council controlled by Maduro's government announced that he'd won reelection with 51.95% of the vote, but provided no evidence. However, the opposition also claimed victory, and did have some evidence: copies of vote tallies from more than 83% of precincts.

The international response has been broadly anti-Maduro, whose government has been widely accused of human rights violations and is often characterized as autocratic. Many countries—even Chile, led by a left-leaning government—declared fraud on the part of the Venezuelan government, and some, such as the United States, recognized González as the winner. Only a handful of small Latin American countries did so for Maduro.

Lula hasn't take sides in the electoral dispute but, like other international actors, called for Maduro to release the full tallies. Lula and Colombia President Gustavo Petro, another leftist, have indicated they could be intermediaries between the two Venezuelan sides. The U.S. came out in support of the Brazil- and Colombia-led dialogue. But Lula's role as interlocutor didn't stop him from making the critical remarks on Friday.

"I think Venezuela is living under a very unpleasant regime," Lula said on Rádio Gaúcha.

The Brazilian president said that Maduro was not a dictator but had authoritarian leanings:

"It's different to a dictatorship—it is a government with an authoritarian slant but it isn't a dictatorship the likes of which we know so many in this world."

Lula and Petro had earlier this week suggested that Venezuela might redo the election—and U.S. President Joe Biden appeared to support the idea, though the administration later walked back the comment—but both Maduro and the opposition dismissed the idea.

Maduro's government has cracked down on dissent since the election, arresting more than 2,000 people, in what experts have called an unprecedented level of repression, The New York Times reported Saturday. Maduro is "bent on punishing those he considers disloyal," according to the Times.

A panel of four U.N. experts who were in Venezuela during the election issued an interim report last week that found that "the announcement of an election outcome without the publication of its details or the release of tabulated results to candidates has no precedent in contemporary democratic elections."

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a left-leaning, U.S.-based think tank, released a report on Tuesday arguing that the Brazil and Columbia-led mediation was the best way forward, and that more U.S. sanctions would only deepen the political crisis in Venezuela.

The report says that sanctions "have taken the lives of tens of thousands of Venezuelans and fueled the migration of millions more," and argues that failed U.S. policies and U.S.-supported coup attempts in 2002 and 2019, per CEPR's characterization, contributed to the current crisis in Venezuela.

Maduro has held power since 2013, when his predecessor and former boss, the socialist Hugo Chávez, died after ruling the country for 13 years. Chávez, buoyed by fossil fuel reserves, helped lift the standard of living for working-class Venezuelans, but the country has faced a combination of political and economic challenges in the past decade, and Maduro appears to have lost working-class support.