Lula asks the world for “presumption of innocence” in Venezuela election

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) endorsed – and celebrated – the decision of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to schedule the presidential elections in the country for July 28, and asked the world to give a “presumption of innocence” to the country’s electoral process.

The statement was made in the early afternoon of this Wednesday (6) during the joint statement with the president of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, who is visiting Brazil. Lula, who is seen as a kind of “guarantor” of Maduro before the international community, was questioned about the fairness of the country’s presidential elections with potential opposition candidates prevented from running.

Lula stated that he cannot guarantee in advance that the elections will be “honest” and “democratic” – although he hopes for it –, but that he received Maduro’s guarantee that he will open the electoral process for the world’s observation.

“According to President Maduro told me at the meeting in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, he will call on all the scouts in the world who want to watch the electoral process in Venezuela,” said Lula.

He also stated that the international community “has every interest in knowing whether it will be the most democratic election in Venezuela”, and that “we cannot start casting doubt before the elections take place”. “We have to guarantee the presumption of innocence until the elections take place so that we can judge whether they were democratic”, he added.

Lula took the opportunity to attack former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), stating that he “to this day does not accept” the result of the Brazilian election and that only he, who lost three elections, accepted “the result calmly”.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also recalled that he was prevented from running in the 2018 presidential election due to Operation Lava Jato investigations, which led to his arrest.

“I was prevented from running in the 2018 elections, and instead of crying, I nominated another candidate [Fernando Haddad] who contested the elections”, he stated.

The president also said he hopes that the Brazilian press follows the Venezuelan election “not with the eyes of prior condemnation, but with the eyes of investigation to show what happened there”.