Why Lula uses different rules with Ortega and Maduro – 06/29/2023 – Bruno Boghossian

Nobody had asked anything about Daniel Ortega, but Lula warned that he would have a conversation with the dictator. “We have a problem in Nicaragua”, she sentenced her, just like that, in the first person plural.

Lula took advantage of Ortega as an escape valve. The president gave an interview to Rádio Gaúcha and exaggerated his generosity to defend Nicolás Maduro. He denied that Venezuela was an authoritarian regime, with the excuse that there are elections in the country, and added that “the concept of democracy is relative”.

Recognizing that there is a “problem in Nicaragua” is proof that Lula knows the difference between autocracy and democracy. Ortega is contesting elections, but has reduced the shackles of presidential power and created a system of persecution of political opponents.

Lula adjusts the rhetoric, but still uses pastel tones when talking about Nicaragua. In the interview, he limited himself to what he called “problems with the Church,” in reference to the arrest of Catholic bishop Rolando Álvarez by the Ortega regime last year.

The government tries to mark a difference in the treatment of the country. In addition to Lula’s timid step, Brazil supported an OAS statement that expressed concern about reports of repression in Nicaragua.

Lula refuses to do something similar to Maduro, not least because there are big differences between the cases. Ortega abruptly closed the regime, inaugurated a radical persecution and is distant, while the process in Venezuela has been consolidated over decades, in a country that shares interests with Brazil.

None of this makes Maduro’s democratic deficit warrant safe conduct. Lula abused this artifice when he compared the Venezuelan opposition to Bolsonaro and the coup plotters in Brasilia (“people who don’t want to accept the result”), ignoring barriers to electoral competition in the country.

It is more than clear that Lula will never throw Maduro overboard — and he shouldn’t even do that. Nor should it pretend, just to accommodate an ally, that the requirements of democracy are items of voluntary adherence.

PRESENT LINK: Did you like this text? Subscriber can release five free hits of any link per day. Just click the blue F below.