Brazil and Colombia remain silent on the TSJ ruling in favor of Maduro while Mexico requests the electoral records

One day after the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela ratified the victory of President Nicolás Maduro after conducting an expert analysis of the results of the presidential elections of July 28, without delivering the electoral records, the axis of mediating countries that make up Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, maintained this Friday mixed reactions to the ruling of the highest Venezuelan court.

Shortly after the TSJ confirmed Maduro’s victory, and pending an official statement from the Brazilian government and Foreign Ministry, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s top special advisor for international affairs, former Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, acknowledged that he saw a critical scenario developing in Venezuela, but maintained that the Brazilian government would do everything in its power to prevent an escalation of the conflict.

“I see things as really very difficult, but we are always trying, with the help of others and in partnership with other countries that have a similar vision to ours, to do what we can to avoid a very conflictive situation internally,” Amorim said in statements to the weekly Carta Capital.

Previously, Lula’s advisor again asked the Maduro administration to publish the data broken down by voting centers and tables before the Public Relations Commission of the Brazilian Senate and stressed that they will only recognize the results once the documents are made public and the victory is verified.

“President Lula’s impatience with the delay in the minutes is already very clear. This is clearly worrying,” Amorim said in the Senate. “We are reaching a point where we need to feel a real evolution. I have said this over and over again. President Lula has already said it: Brazil will not recognize a president who is not based on the minutes,” he added, according to Venezuelan media outlet Tal Cual.

Speaking to CNN en Español, the Brazilian diplomat insisted this week on the possibility of repeating the elections with observation by the European Union (EU), despite the rejection expressed by Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. “If both sides say they won, why not have another election in which the problems that are said to have contaminated this election can be avoided? If he won, he will probably win again, right? I am not responding to Corina (Machado) or anything like that, I am saying that dialogue is important, tolerance is important,” he said.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gestures during a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, April 11, 2022. Photo: Reuters

Initially, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico joined together and issued joint statements demanding the publication of electoral records by Caracas. Later, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) distanced himself from Lula and Colombian President Gustavo Petro on the issue, stating that he would resume dialogue with his peers once the TSJ ruled.

But during the morning press conference on Friday, AMLO maintained the suspense, saying that he will wait for the publication of the disaggregated results to recognize one of the candidates as the new president of Venezuela. “We are going to wait, because yesterday the Court maintains that President Maduro won the election and, at the same time, recommends that the minutes be made public. I believe there is a date in the resolution, so we are going to wait,” he said.

But the Mexican leader did not join the joint rejection made on Friday by Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the United States, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay regarding the ruling of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, which certified Maduro’s disputed victory. “We categorically reject the announcement by the Supreme Court that seeks to validate the unsupported results issued by the electoral body,” says the joint statement.

Questioned by the press about his opinion, López Obrador said he was “respectful” of the decisions taken in other countries and stated that there is a “bunch” of disqualifications and condemnations of the Venezuelan government. “But, we have to act, I repeat, in accordance with our Constitution,” he concluded. AMLO insisted that he will wait to comment on the case of Venezuela, maintaining that “the best foreign policy is domestic policy.”

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He also said he had not had any communication with Maduro during the post-election crisis, recalling that he last met with him in Palenque, in the southern state of Chiapas, at a summit on migration that Mexico hosted last October.

“No (I have not spoken with him), that is what our adversaries think, imagine, and spread slanderously. We are very respectful. I just had (weeks ago) a phone call with President Lula and President Petro on the subject of Venezuela and we set out our position,” he said.

Despite the strong reactions caused by the TSJ ruling, “Colombia has remained silent after this event,” the Infobae website noted. Neither the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luis Gilberto Murillo, nor the President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, have referred to the actions of the judicial body, the media outlet detailed.

However, Infobae Colombia reported that on Friday, during an official visit to Mexico, Foreign Minister Murillo will refer to “this delicate situation and what the national government’s position would be from now on regarding what happened in Venezuela.”

Murillo previously announced that Petro’s government held talks on Wednesday with former presidents of Colombia about the post-electoral conflict in Venezuela and about the ways in which the country could help find a solution.

The conversations took place during the session of the Foreign Relations Advisory Committee – the advisory body of the President of the Republic in the Senate – to which legislators, officials and former officials were summoned. Among the latter were former presidents Juan Manuel Santos and Ernesto Samper, Murillo explained. In addition, although they did not attend the meeting, the foreign minister said that he spoke separately with former presidents Álvaro Uribe, Iván Duque and Andrés Pastrana, and that he hoped to do so with César Gaviria.

But Petro’s silence has raised harsh questions from Colombian politicians critical of his government. This is the case of the representative to the House of Representatives of the Green Alliance Katherine Miranda. On her X account, the congresswoman, who supported the head of state in the presidential campaign, but distanced herself from his management at the head of the Executive and became one of his opponents, described Petro’s attitude as a “shame” and questioned whether he would continue his silence in the face of what she considers a dictatorship in Venezuela.

“Will President @petrogustavo continue his silence in the face of Maduro? How shameful is your complicit attitude in the face of what is clearly a DICTATORSHIP,” Miranda’s message reads.

Miranda was soon joined by the former mayor of Bogotá and future presidential candidate Claudia López, who on the same platform also questioned Petro and his striking silence regarding what is happening on the other side of the border.

“Your complicity with Maduro and with a regime that violates human rights, is repressive, corrupt, anti-democratic and dictatorial, is a shame for Colombia, for which you will pay a high price and defeat in our democracy. What a capacity you have to confirm one by one all the fears you inspired. This time, that of being an accomplice of the Maduro regime. And with that, that you might not respect either in Venezuela or in Colombia the holding and results of a democratic election,” López stressed.