When Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the Venezuelan presidential election last week, there was an immediate outcry and accusations of fraud. Maduro had trailed significantly in many polls, and the National Electoral Council (CNE) didnât provide access to voting breakdowns as it is legally required to do.
While much of the rhetoric from Maduro and opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutiaâs supporters has been heated, left-leaning governments in the region havenât come down on either side â despite many longstanding connections with Maduroâs administration. This is a marked shift within the remnants of the âpink tideâ of leftist governments that dominated Latin American countries in the noughties may provide a way through the crisis, and achieve a democratic transition in Venezuela.
The governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have led many other nations in demanding electoral authorities release voting tallies for each electronic voting machine, but they have abstained from accusing Maduro of wrongdoing â they have not used the term âfraudâ or denounced the Venezuelan regimeâs unacceptable post-election human rights violations. They are apparently hoping to get Venezuelaâs government and opposition parties back to the negotiating table.
This is perhaps the most high-profile example of the mediating role Brazilâs president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, seeks on the world stage, and a demonstration of what his âactive nonalignmentâ diplomacy looks like in practice.
If Lulaâs strategy â taken on by the larger bloc â works, it will be a resounding affirmation of his much-misunderstood âthird wayâ diplomatic strategy, which seeks to further the economic concerns of developing countries without picking a side in the great powers conflict in the current global cold war 2.0. It will also be a moral compass in a region where democracy is threatened by backsliding driven by elected leaders. The strategy could serve as an important electoral bulwark against the rise of extreme-right movements that threaten Latin American democracy.
This studiedly unhostile approach to Venezuelaâs crisis represents an alternative to the dominant approach of the past: with Latin American countries denouncing whichever side was ideologically convenient and the US bluntly deploying economic sanctions. While the Biden administration has strongly supported negotiation efforts in Venezuala, Washington unilaterally recognised the opposition candidate González as the winner of the election on Thursday.
This kind of posturing has done little, and unreserved support from western states has often provided cover for governments to make authoritarian moves. Additionally, in a multipolar world where Venezuela can rely on the support of Russia and China â both of which have already congratulated Maduro on his re-election â it risks pulling the region into larger international conflicts.
Leftists in the region have traditionally maintained a soft spot for Cuba, and have, for years, refrained from fully denouncing democratic backsliding in Venezuela. This tolerance reflects a cold war-influenced bilateral tradition in the region that has always tried, wrongly, to differentiate between leftwing and rightwing authoritarianism, allowing that violations committed in the name of an ideology could somehow be justified in the face of the larger battle between the two sides. The stance must be understood against the backdrop of cynical US intervention in Latin America that long supported violent military dictatorships.
Statements this week by Lula, Colombiaâs president, Gustavo Petro, Mexicoâs president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexicoâs president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, Chileâs president, Gabriel Boric, former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet and former Argentinian president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner are the most visible sign of a deep shift in the Latin American left, away from these ideological commitments.
To have even former fellow travellers, such as Lula and Kirchner, push back against Maduroâs election fraud lays bare the increasing gap between Latin Americaâs leftist democracies and âleftistâ dictatorships. The old leadersâ new stance partially responds to generational turnover. Todayâs young voters were raised in the pink tide period and didnât live through the social devastation wreaked by Washington consensus neoliberal economic policies. In Chile, Colombia and Brazil, they have elected leaders whose platforms focused on climate crisis, social justice and reproductive health.
The leftist leadersâ statements also hint at a manifesto for Latin Americaâs new left, with democracy and social justice as cornerstones, framed as historical continuity. Indeed, Petro and Kirchner invoked the legacy of Hugo Chávez in calling for Maduro to publish detailed election results. They also emphasised the deleterious effect of US sanctions on Venezuelan democracy. The decades-long US embargo on Cuba is detested by the regionâs left, and the reference marks a ratification of their historical anti-imperialist stance.
The regionâs rightwing leaders have rightly highlighted the crimes against humanity committed by Maduro. But few expressed the same concern for human rights abuses committed by ideological allies, such as the massacre of protesters under the interim government of Jeanine Ãñez in Bolivia in 2019, or the electoral fraud that Juan Orlando Hernández leveraged into a second presidential term in Honduras in 2017. Argentinaâs president, Javier Milei, has called Maduro a âcommunist dictatorâ, but has cozied up to El Salvador, apparently unconcerned by the systematic human rights violations that form the backbone of President Nayib Bukeleâs controversial security policies. Thus, their outrage will carry little weight in this crisis.
Leftist leadersâ new stance represents a moral line that is consistent with the ideology they profess; how they respond to increasing government repression will be a test of this shift. In any case, the goal of bringing about a true accounting of the election results cannot be accomplished without engaging Maduroâs government.