Caracas Chronicles

Many say they are ambiguous and lukewarm, but it seems they are the only ones who may have a line to talk with Nicolás Maduro, at least for now. Brazil’s Lula da Silva and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, along with their Mexican colleague Andrés Manuel López Obrador, are keeping everyone in suspense by leading an effort to start a dialog with the defeated—but more radicalized than ever—Maduro. This, while colectivos and security forces spread terror in Venezuela, and global stakeholders like the U.S. and the EU pressure the Venezuelan elections authority (CNE) to show their numbers.

Last week, on our Political Risk Report, we wrote that “Mexico, Colombia and Brazil are well aware that Maduro lost the election, but they fear that there’s no way he will accept defeat (…) The question for Colombia and Brazil is then how to mitigate the impact on their countries of Maduro staying. According to sources, one option under consideration if transition talks fail, is to push Maduro to grant concessions to the opposition and to civic society, which would hopefully decrease political tensions (…) The opposition would obviously reject this outcome, and that’s why Colombia and Brazil will first try to work with González and Machado to see if they can get a transition going or some kind of co-government agreement. If that fails, it’ll be time for them to consider a direct agreement between Colombia, Brazil and Maduro that bypasses the Venezuela opposition, but would grant Maduro something he wants –recognition from these three key regional actors–, and appease Colombian and Brazilian concerns of increased volatility”.

Later in the week, this proposal came to the public eye after Datanálisis DIrector Luis Vicente León published it in a tweet as one of “the only options available in a case like this.” He got a slight dosfe of cancellation over it.

Lula, Petro, and AMLO might be trying to activate a transition… or looking for an offramp from their negotiator roles in what might seem to them as an impossible negotiation—which may end up allowing Maduro to get away with a massive fraud. The truth may reside between these two poles. Yesterday, Brazilian media outlet O Globo revealed that Lula’s envoy, Celso Amorim, is floating the idea of repeating the election with European observers, in exchange for sanction removal, on the assumption that this time everyone will see who the winner is. A weak proposal that neither side will be willing to accept, which only serves as evidence that the negotiations are not moving forward.

The negotiations are extremely murky, and there’s too many rumors and conspiracy theories in the air to be able to get a clear picture. What we may attempt, however, is to analyze the incentives that these three stakeholders—the three amigos—may have to help resolve the Venezuelan electoral crisis.

Colombia: extremely troubled and incredibly close

A collapse of the “BraColMex” diplomatic effort in Venezuela—host of Bogota’s talks with the ELN—will cost Petro’s aspirations of political continuation. It will also weaken his “Total Peace” policy, which has not made significant strides and may relapse in the coming months. Also, armed groups managed to strengthen during the negotiations. The yearlong ceasefire with the ELN guerrillas, which expired on August 3, allowed them to step up its administrative control and surveillance. ELN already operates in 19 of Colombia’s 32 departments and eight Venezuelan states, where it manages economic activities outside Colombia’s reach, in cooperation with Chavista actors. 

However, the gigantic refugee crisis that Colombians will face if Maduro stays in power should be Petro’s biggest concern, a chaotic scenario that his government isn’t prepared for. Local governments are already bracing. The president of Cúcuta’s municipal council told La Nación on Monday that Colombia must reinforce border crossings very soon.

Nearly three million Venezuelans are already in Colombia. Maduro’s entrenchment may push another five million to flee their homes in the next six months, according to local firm ORC Consultores. Some will just transit Colombia trying to reach the Darién Gap, but others will stay (even if it’s more difficult now) to reunite with a vast network of families, friends and informal employers. A new wave of migrants could reignite xenophobia against Venezuelans and inflict a mortal wound to the remaining two years of Petro’s administration. His approval ratings have halved since his term began and now lie at 32%. 

The economic side of the problem looks bleak as well. Petro’s long-standing illusion of energy integration and the resumption of essential trade with Venezuela will vanish as Maduro further isolates. In June, Ecopetrol reportedly struck a deal with PDVSA to cover 8% of Colombia’s natural gas supply, a figure that will continue rising over the years. But last week, Colombia’s Energy Minister recognized that the Antonio Ricaurte gasline is seriously damaged and importing from Venezuela is unfeasible from a “political, technical, and financial viewpoint.”

Petro needs a peaceful Venezuela, but also one where less people are trying to leave, and the ELN and FARC remnants have no sanctuary. This can only happen without Maduro in power. The question is how much he can do, or is willing to do under his anti-American mindframe and political history.

México: far away, so close

López Obrador, another populist from the old left with a history of warm (but not very close) relationship with the Castros and Maduro, is a different case. He is a lame duck, in the final months of his presidency before handing it to his dauphine, Claudia Sheinbaum. But he enjoys a solid approval rate and a weak opposition from the center and the right. His political base is formed by millions of Mexicans who benefited from welfare measures during his government, and who don’t care a lot about the rest of the world beyond Mexico and the U.S., where so many Mexicans live. Personally, he wouldn’t pay a high political price for not being openly critical of Maduro. However, there are reasons why AMLO has not congratulated Maduro as a reelected president more than two weeks after the election.

First, he can’t act on his own; he must sync his stance with Sheinbaum, the one who will have to deal with the consequences of Mexico’s role in the Venezuelan dossier. The elected president’s comments about Venezuela have been similar but a bit more distant than AMLO’s, and she might be more pragmatic on the matter.

Second, electoral fraud is a sensitive subject for the Mexican president, who claimed to have won the 2006 election. It would be incoherent for him to dismiss a case so well-sustained as the one exposed by the Venezuelan opposition today. That said, the Mexican dogma of not meddling in foreign affairs allows him to craft ambiguous messages that don’t quite support or reject the chavistas or opposition causes (even if he has said that the chavista-controlled TSJ will solve the problem).

Last, but not least, he must consider Washington, with whom AMLO’s government is forced to deal with, given the critical nature of the U.S.-Mexico relationship; although Mexico and the U.S. won’t have the same position on Venezuela, they’re likely not to be completely opposite. Despite his rhetoric, AMLO is closer to the American foreign policy that one can expect. He helped the Trump and Biden administrations by making Mexico a bottleneck for Venezuelan migrants. If Venezuela doesn’t embark on a transition it will expel a new wave of mass migration heading to the U.S., it will also add pressure on Mexican institutions and cities, and stimulate the public and the opposition to blame AMLO for not helping force Maduro to accept he lost.

All eyes on Lula

What political cost would Lula have to pay if he is perceived to help Maduro do away with such a massive fraud? He would get considerable heat from his domestic opposition if he fails to convince Maduro. In fact, the same piece on O Globo that talks about Amorim proposing a second election ends up saying that Lula’s stance on Venezuela will affect his popularity.

Regarding the threat of a new surge in Venezuelan migration, the pressure is smaller than in Colombia. Because of its size, Brazil still has the capacity to absorb more people, especially because its Operaçao Acolhida has been a regional example on how to receive and allocate Venezuelans across the territory. 

This veteran of the Latin American left, an old pal of Hugo Chavez but not so much of Maduro’s, has much more at stake in the international arena, where he’s seen as the leader of the mediation attempt with Colombia and Mexico, for his seniority and his country’s geopolitical weight. The U.S., the European Union and more belligerent actors like Chile’s president Gabriel Boric have all said they are waiting to see what Lula can do.

You can blame Lula’s ego for pushing him under so much attention. He seems to want to close his long political career with a shiny Nobel Prize on a shelf in Sao Paulo, instead of dropping pearls of wisdom from a fazenda like Uruguay’s Pepe Mujica—the left’s Yoda in Dagobah. He failed when he tried to mediate between Russia and Ukraine; he might think he has better chances with a neighbor, and has deployed his humored persona to pet that wounded wolf that is the chavista regime, even if that means infuriating anyone aware of Maduro’s record on human rights and of the extent of the fraud committed on July 28. Besides, Itamaraty (Brazil’s foreign service) believes in maintaining cordial relations with different ideological camps and resisting the American influence, in the tradition of the Cold War’s Non-Aligned Movement—and it favors patience when it comes to offering a hand in messy conflicts like ours.

Some time ago, Lula already tried to stimulate Maduro into a more moderate version of himself, by inviting him to Brazil and offering him a glimpse of a life different to that of the pariah. Now, Lula insists on approaching him, even after Maduro rejected the Brazilian observation mission just days before the election. Through his close collaborator Celso Amorim, Lula signals how low his current hopes are, trying to reduce the expectations on his performance as mediator. He knows that if Maduro holds his position, Lula’s prestige as the developing world’s elder will suffer, as well as the image of Latin American’s left and socialism as a whole.

Washington waits its turn

Despite what all these actors might achieve or not, in the end what matters most in the international arena is what the U.S. will do about the Chavista regime. 

Washington recognizes González Urrutia’s victory but stops short from calling him Venezuela’s president-elect in an attempt to keep the door somewhat open to a negotiated solution with Chavismo. It’s clear that they don’t want three years of diplomatic engagement and building a flexible sanctions regime to go to waste, and so they are supporting talks between Miraflores and BraColMex. The U.S. was patient enough during the presidential race, and is now waiting to see whether Lula and Petro can make Maduro give in on any proposal before making their next move, but Chavismo’s path of terror and denial is twisting the arm of the Biden administration. The sheer magnitude of the election fraud, and the unprecedented levels of repression that have followed—a situation that in previous moments was met with swift OFAC sanctions and aggressive remarks about Maduro’s dictatorial profile—may force the White House to take some action against Miraflores for the first time since 2019.

Is the U.S. confident about Brazil and Colombia’s (nevermind AMLO’s) ability to persuade Maduro into that enigmatic anything that could maybe give way to a transition and promote the opposition’s genuine participation in institutional politics? We can’t know for sure, and possibly the Americans don’t know what to think either.

The U.S. has different relations and histories with the three amigos, who vary in interests and discourses over Venezuela and geopolitics at large. Petro’s strong condemnation of Israel and kind ambiguity over BRICS membership suggests that he wants Colombia to move away from the influence of its most important ally and security provider. Perhaps Lula is more receptive to what Washington says or believes? Perhaps, yes. Brazil survived Bolsonaro’s failed coup partly thanks to U.S. involvement. But we should not make assumptions about what could be discussed in a video call between these guys and Maduro & Co.

The Americans, however, do know that a Maduro that follows Nicaragua’s trail will push millions to their southern border in the foreseeable future, which will match the GOP’s narrative about Biden’s leniency on immigration and Trump’s fear mongering on Venezuelan criminals crossing the border.

As we’ve said before, the U.S. wants a cooperative counterpart in Caracas with whom it can work, trade, and jointly address regional security affairs. Maduro has explicitly signaled that it wants Western corporations to keep lobbying for licenses to come to his turf. That probably won’t be possible with a deranged government that kills and quashes in every direction. But American-Venezuelan relations would also remain uncertain in the event of a still distant, yet possible shake-up in the ruling elite, which could give way to an unstable and unmanageable transition for U.S. interests.

These diplomatic efforts may be suffering the chronicle of a death foretold, since chavismo is unlikely to be swayed from their established narrative of a Maduro victory. Which shifts all the weight of a transition effort to Venezuelans inside the country. But that is a different article.