Although the public debate in Venezuela is dominated by domestic affairs, the government is consistent in paying attention to its foreign policy and allies through thick and thin. It perseveres, even if it doesn’t show. Sometimes, mistakenly, it seems that the firm grip of the executive branch to power means that foreign affairs will not be taken care of. Maduro has resumed his trips to international meetings since 2021, the most recent being a summit of chiefs of government organized by Lula on May 30. Maduro has already been accepted and recognized, although “certain conditions apply” given that the final document of the Brazil meeting has not yet been released (unless I am unaware of it). This acceptance and recognition allow the government to advance in placing Venezuela in geopolitical coordinates that are not anti-West but move toward illiberal models rather than the West. The counterweight to this reality is that our nation is surrounded by governments that embrace the values and procedures of liberal democracy. Maduro is recognized, but the authoritarianism of his government has some counterweights in the region. Will the authoritarian banning of María Corina Machado from public office do away with this possibility? No, but the move puts it to the test
The attention of public opinion is currently divided between the appointment of a new board of the National Electoral Council, the opposition primaries and the presidential elections, in addition to recent international events such as the disappearance of the Titan or the rebellion of the Wagner group in Russia, which captured world attention. The rest does not arouse much interest. However, politics is not only limited to domestic affairs. This week, I am going to write about politics beyond the borders of Venezuela, even though it is going to be a short walk as domestic issues are always unfolding and will soon take me back to what happens within our borders.
The Venezuelan government is known for never ignoring its international front, no matter what. Meetings of the minister of foreign affairs with ambassadors of allied countries such as China, Russia, or Iran are often announced on social media. One of the most recent took place on June 27 with the Russian minister of foreign affairs, Sergey Lavrov.
During a broadcast on June 19, Maduro reiterated that adjustments for Venezuela to join Russia’s MIR electronic payment system platform -an announcement that was made a year ago- were in the final stage. Likewise, a route for ships between Puerto Cabello and St. Petersburg is being explored. When reading this news, I got the impression that Venezuela will become the point of arrival or transit for part of the Russian wheat. This example, together with Maduro’s trips abroad, mainly to Brazil, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, or the visit of the president of Iran to Venezuela suggests that while society focuses on domestic issues, the executive branch is gradually placing Venezuela in other geopolitical coordinates where Maduro enjoys more recognition, by law or by the facts.
In this article, I will focus on the visit of President Maduro to Brazil in late May, where he met with President Lula and participated in a meeting with the presidents of the region, a highly important trip for the government.
The conclave between the leaders concluded on May 30 with a group picture that revealed the unity and differences between our countries: Maduro at one end of the group and Lacalle at the other. The question arises of what we can make of this meeting in Brazil.
The analysis pivots around Lula and Maduro.
Although the meeting did not echo much when it was originally proposed for May 1st, Lula still has some influence. He managed to convene the presidents in less than a month, showing that not only does Lula retain his ascendency but the leaders also ponder the need for spaces for exchange in a region where such fora are either non-existent or lack the legitimacy they used to have.
The reunion was facilitated by the format of the meetings, a face-to-face conversation that did not pretend to become another regional body and that had not taken place since 2014, according to the president of Bolivia. In a region that communicates that “everyone goes their own way”, the heads of State needed to see each other and have a talk. In short, Lula was recognized by his peers who agreed to meet in Brazil. Lula is aware of the changes in geopolitics when pointing out that the region is now characterized by diversity, a far cry from the progressive Latin American of the early 2000s led by Chávez, Kirchner and the Brazilian president himself.
Along with Lula’s political weight, there is the fact that leftist presidents are moving to build a successful regional space. This would be the third meeting of a series that started in 2021 with the CELAC summit, organized by Mexico under the presidency of Manuel López Obrador and attended by Maduro.
Even though CELAC is a formal space without binding decisions, it succeeded in bringing together the presidents of the region nonetheless. Then came Petro’s effort with the conference on Venezuela. The call was answered by 19 countries plus the EU. However, the conference was swallowed up by the internal dynamics of Colombia, with Petro sinking in public ratings and without his closest ally in the government, Laura Sarabia; under attack by factual powers that want to overthrow him and an administration that seems to have lost its initial momentum and taken him to where all those who seek major changes -whether in the right or the left- eventually get: making concessions or following the original project, a dilemma that opens another: making small reforms in democracy or crossing the line to start a “revolution” outside democracy. I have the impression that President Petro is navigating these dilemmas.
Back to the meeting promoted by Lula, which was attended by 12 presidents, it is worth recalling that previous initiatives by right-wing leaders like Prosur failed to come to life. This time, Lula gave a speech under a Latin American sentiment that seeks to revitalize a sense of unity in the region, with concrete proposals to reduce the criticism of “yet another summit without results.”
The spirit of 2023 is not to return to the institutions of the past but to recover political diversity under the assumption that governments can communicate with each other amid their differences. Maduro surely emphasized this because he is interested in returning to regional and global spaces, but this does not seem to be something exclusive to Venezuela. There is a need to establish communication at times when countries face domestic problems and global geopolitical changes are influencing South America. Everyone wants a space for exchange that we don’t have today.
We are yet to see how this diversity will unfold in regional fora, because in the Venezuelan case, Boric welcomed Maduro’s return to the diplomatic spaces of the South but pointed out that “not everything can be swept under the rug”, referring to the government’s authoritarianism. The president of Chile also stated that the sanctions should be reviewed “because they punish the people.” It is then necessary to evaluate how this relationship between governments of different leanings will take place.
In this first part of our analysis, the meeting in Brazil sought to build a space or relationship mechanism between presidents. It is not yet clear if it will be something new or a transformation of existing bodies. The truth is that a new space is pursued. President Petro announced the return of Colombia to Unasur but proposed changing the bloc’s name from union to association in response to the diversity of the region. Let’s be honest, there will not be a union because we are diverse, but there can be common goals amid diversity.
The novel instance seems to be called to bring together the political diversity of the governments in the region and avoid the mistake of “ideologization” pointed out by presidents of different political leanings like Uruguay’s Lacalle or Maduro himself in reference to regional groups such as Unasur. Today, something like a “side by side but not eye to eye” approach is pursued, a logic of the institutions of the past that will now serve to address specific issues. Uruguay and Guyana, for example, insisted that “we are going to be judged for our results and actions rather than our words”.
Today the presidents of the region assume their differences and should focus on how to handle them, whether there will be room for criticism -as happened to Maduro- or everything will be swept under the rug. In other words, we are yet to see whether the presidents will meet mostly for trade issues and will not discuss topics such as human rights, democracy, and pluralism, subjects where criticism and conflicting conceptions may arise. Maduro is being questioned about his human rights record, but he can do the same with Chile or Colombia, countries where protests have been repressed by the State.
In other words, the principle of non-intervention in internal affairs can have a strict interpretation or be subject to broader values such as the agreement proposed by President Petro proposed under the framework of the inter-American system. Petro’s proposal hints at the universality of human rights, while Mexico’s López Obrador considered them the internal affair of countries during the CELAC summit in 2021.
This issue was raised by President Lacalle when pointing out that topics like Human Rights or Democracy are under negotiation for the final document of the Brazil meeting. About Venezuela, the Uruguayan president explained that “if this point is not mentioned [in the document], I will not address it, leaving the door open to either a strict or broad interpretation of the human rights issue. For President Lacalle, if the subject is brought up, he will speak; otherwise, he said, “Our affection goes to the people of Venezuela, but we do not have the possibility of electing their government.” He conveyed a similar idea during a Unasur meeting on July 4 when questioning the banning of María Corina Machado from public office.
One thing went and still goes unnoticed. The final document of the meeting in Brazil has not been disclosed yet, unless I ignore it. Maybe this is due to it being “under negotiation”, as president Lacalle explained. In the case of Venezuela, the scope of issues such as Human Rights is still in negotiation. Countries with the likes of Uruguay may have formulated a wording that Venezuela does not accept, for which the document is being negotiated and no agreement has been reached. The fact that the final document has not been released shows that Maduro is recognized – Uruguay sent an ambassador to Caracas for the first time since 2016 – albeit with observations and differences. It is not a blind recognition, as further observed in the intervention of the Uruguayan President at the Unasur meeting.
For President Maduro, the analysis of the trip is generally satisfactory. The most important thing is that he is now accepted by his peers who used to have reservations, which is essential for the Venezuelan president. Maduro´s participation in international meetings is no longer under discussion. Like it or not, Maduro has gained recognition as incumbent president and the discussion is now centered on the government’s credentials. Only some parliamentarians call him a “dictator” or “murderer” for the hype on social media, as happened in Brazil on May 30 when Maduro arrived for a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a shout of “dictator” was heard in the background, which Maduro ignored. The Venezuelan president feels that he came out stronger, which he hinted at when speaking of a “Brasilia consensus.”
In this sense, Maduro scored a victory. From execrated to welcomed, he now enjoys recognition, albeit with “certain conditions”. He had already been at the Celac summit in 2021 -where he received direct and indirect criticism from the presidents of Paraguay, Uruguay, and Ecuador- and now he has gone one more step after being accepted in a private meeting of presidents. In this sense, the summit was favorable for Maduro and his government.
As I already mentioned, Lacalle’s intervention left open one question about Venezuela: whether there is room to express an opinion –for example, regarding human rights issues- or not. This will be seen in the joint declaration “that is being negotiated to be signed by all”, as indicated by the president of Uruguay on May 30.
Maduro understood Lacalle’s words at the meeting. The Venezuelan president made a good intervention because he did not appear confrontational, which reveals that he knows politics and the ground he steps on.
His message made it clear that he favors a mechanism for communication between the presidents, a joint agenda and the non-ideologization of spaces, an idea on which all the leaders seem to agree. Ideologization damaged the relations between the countries in the past, and awareness exists today of the need for the reconstruction of these relationships at a minimum level. Maduro proposed something along the lines of “resuming the architecture of Unasur” for a soon-to-be regional instance.
Maduro’s concern will now be how the relationship with his peers unfolds, some of whom he has already been able to talk to. There is even a picture showing Maduro and Lasso having a chat (the latter also questioned on Twitter the wrongful banning of María Corina Machado from public office).
It will be important to figure out what that relationship between the presidents will be like. Whether they will refrain from expressing criticism – even in private – or voice them out and leave it to each president to decide if paying attention or not to a sort of “voice of conscience” that will criticize them. This voice should not seek to point fingers – which doesn’t seem like the current spirit – but neither should it be a voice to “sweep everything under the rug”. In the Venezuelan case, a middle ground must be sought that invites the government to submit to checks and balances to suppress its authoritarian nature.
For example, Alberto Fernández met with Maduro at the Brazil summit to tell him that guarantees for the 2024 presidential elections should be worked with the opposition and invite the government to return to the “inter-American system.” Perhaps other presidents do not make such proposals and are only limited to formalities. Perhaps Maduro will accept the suggestion to evaluate or reject them. In the case of those made by President Fernández, Maduro may consider them. Argentina has criticized the US sanctions policy, so it may enjoy legitimacy in front of the Maduro government to suggest new talks with the opposition. On the other side, we have the interventions of Lacalle and Paraguayan president Benítez in Mercosur on July 4 where they rightfully recalled that it is not democratic to ban people from public office without guarantees of due process. Both directly addressed the Venezuelan government.
The final declaration of the Brazil meeting will shed light on this question, as well as the ensuing interaction between Venezuela and the countries of the region. Maduro wants regional acceptance – which he already has – while seeking to put Venezuela at the center of organizations like the BRICS. The ultimate goal is to see the Chavista political system being accepted as it is.
President Maduro offered a hint. He pointed out that he would be meeting with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs who attended the conference on Venezuela organized by President Petro on April 25. He spoke of “reviving Colombia”, which initially suggests that the Venezuelan government values this plural space, although it now lacks the strength of April.
During the presidential meeting in Brazil, Maduro pointed out that the Venezuelan government is willing to discuss the situation in Venezuela “with respect”. If the discussion takes place, proposals of the like of Petro’s suggestion of an “inter-American system” -a system of human rights guarantees and protection that Chavismo will later regret not having supported- might be presented to Maduro, who will ponder the advice and its impact within Chavismo. Maduro may want to accept but Chavismo may not, or vice versa. Perhaps no one wants to counterweight authoritarianism.
From the perspective of the ruling Chavismo, Maduro’s trip favored him and reaffirmed that he is the right person to lead the government given his international expertise. The much-needed world of relations in diplomacy. On May 31, Diosdado Cabello referred to Maduro’s success abroad when criticizing an influencer for a message posted on social media. Cabello linked the episode to efforts to tarnish Maduro’s trip to Brazil. He referred to the “extraordinary success of the president’s tour,” adding that the influencer sought to “overshadow the president’s trip and make people talk about something else.” Cabello warned that “they should be careful and stay out of trouble.” During a press conference of the ruling PSUV party on June 5, Cabello reiterated the success of the trip, “Maduro has a huge advantage” (over the opposition), he declared.
At the end of the day, the image of a successful Maduro is being communicated. The Venezuelan president left Brazil for Turkey to attend Erdogan’s inauguration, who thanked him for his presence at the event. From Turkey, Maduro left for Saudi Arabia, a country that has traditionally been important in world geopolitics, especially after having distanced itself from the influence of the United States and started to act under a strategy of its own to approach nations like Russia, China, and Iran. In April of this year, Iran and Saudi Arabia announced the reestablishment of relations with the mediation of China.
Maduro seeks a relationship with the Saudi kingdom, as he revealed on June 22, when he suggested exporting coffee to the kingdom, “Arabs like coffee a lot,” he said. The Saudi kingdom is an ally that the government is interested in.
It is the same script from Chávez’s times: a government that triumphs abroad and an opposition with problems. Maduro takes advantage of his international moment. Welcomed by those who rejected him and by the allies that provided support in bad times such as Turkey, he conveys the image of a successful president to whom “everything eventually plays out well.”
The executive branch advances in placing Venezuela in new geopolitical coordinates, more centered on trade than politics, unlike the Chávez era. This responds to two reasons: there is less money in the country and the government has been hit by sanctions and countries accusing it of being a dictatorship”. Maduro has less credit than Chávez, which is why he reversed the relationship: more trade and fewer politics, not because the latter is of no interest, he already has the support of his allies. Together with Turkey, the Maduro government was one of the few that supported Putin during the Wagner rebellion, through a statement of the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs on June 24.
The effort with the BRICS goes in this direction. Not only is it a “magic” word to make the country believe that there will be more investment this time, but the government really sees it as a space for a more trade-oriented foreign policy.
I don’t think Wagner’s game of brinkmanship will affect the relationship with Russia much. Although the opinion of experts in Russia will be better and more timely than mine, the “agreement” worked out by Lukashenko allowing the transfer of Wagner’s chief to Belarus – Lukashenko now says he was in Russia – can be interpreted as a victory for Putin. Had Prigozhin stayed “in his barracks” in Ukraine, the loser would have been Putin. It remains to be seen what Prigozhin got for his dangerous adventure: avoiding prosecution in his country, which is surely relevant, but still less than what the Russian president got: remaining in power.
Of course, nothing will be the same within the Russian Federation nor in its invasion of Ukraine, but Putin is still in command, which is not a small thing if one takes into account the opinions on social media during the onset of the rebellion, many of them from very well known experts -except for the former US Secretary of Defense during the Trump administration, Mike Esper- who spoke of a “coup d’état”, “civil war”, and the escape of Lukashenko (including the typical maps with planes and arrows commonly used to “support” online “hoaxes”).
Putin stands on his feet, dented but in power. With differences in each case, the situation is similar to the coup attempt against Erdogan in 2016.
For this reason, I don’t think that the Venezuela-Russia relationship will change much. Therefore, the executive branch will continue to strengthen its ties with authoritarian or illiberal countries, but also with democratic ones such as Uruguay, even if only formally. But in the formality, room for exchange will exist. President Lacalle’s ambassador is already in Caracas.
Certain theories of political transition -Haggard and Kauffman, 2016, for example- state that the vicinity is a factor for a country to maintain or transition to a democratic system. The executive branch looks for illiberal countries outside the hemisphere to reinforce its authoritarian political model, even though it sits in a region of democratic nations, whether from the left or the right.
In theory, this proximity should weigh in reducing the authoritarianism of the government and maintaining the liberal principle of power alternation provided for in the 1999 Constitution. For this and other reasons, having excluded Maduro from the international stage during the peak of the “maximum pressure” strategy seems to have been a mistake. Ostracizing him had no effect whatsoever. On the contrary, the Venezuelan government moved closer to authoritarian countries, a policy of the Chávez government that is now being pursued with more diligence. I am sure that Putin will take into account the support of Maduro, expressed at a time when public opinion on social media spoke of an ousted Putin. The Venezuelan president took the risk and came out momentarily favored in his relationship with Russia. Maduro is betting on something that he has been repeating lately, “a new world is taking shape” (which he stated during a meeting on June 27).
A regional forum like the one proposed by Lula can do more for democracy in Venezuela than the exclusion of the past, as long as the presidents are willing to debate and confront Maduro in the good sense of the word. I would take President Maduro’s proposal to “debate about the situation in Venezuela”, as he formulated it in Brazil. Will he accept it? I don’t think so, Chavismo doesn’t have institutional courage, but I would develop the idea.
Does the banning of María Corina Machado from holding public office taint the premise that “everything eventually turns out well for Maduro”? Yes and no. The decision will test the government’s strategy of rapprochement with the international community.
Interestingly, the banning of Machado from public office produced important international reactions. This is a fact. However, the way in which criticism was raised this time is different from the narrative of “maximum pressure” that dominated in the past. Today, there is more politics and diplomacy, and less rhetoric or epic speeches.
Countries know that they must be skillful in criticizing the Venezuelan government, far from the zero-sum game of the years 2017 to 2021 that failed to oust Maduro. This is also a fact. An interesting scenario can occur with an argumentative relationship that does not add up to zero in the international arena. The government observed the reactions to the banning of María Corina, which were firm but not enough to sever relations. Some of them even came from the ministers of foreign affairs rather than the foreign ministers themselves, as was the case during the times of “maximum pressure”.
We can expect a new scenario where the Venezuelan government will be observed in its behavior in human rights matters. It will be a live debate rather than empty statements for the applause on Twitter (which there will surely be). This is why skillfulness will be necessary for the interaction between the presidents of the region and Maduro and the Venezuelan government.
The intervention of presidents Lacalle and Benítez in CELAC in 2021 was different from the one they had in Mercosur in 2023. They oppose Maduro but they are also aware that going back to a zero-sum game will not yield any result. The thing here is whether Maduro will also interpret that a zero-sum game is no longer possible. The statements from the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs reveal a differential position: the response to the International Criminal Court was less aggressive than the response given to the United States over its position on the reprehensible banning of Machado from holding public office. The executive branch feels the tension between the discourse on “sovereignty” and the need to return to the “concert of nations.” It does not want to lose its newly gained status either.
In simple terms, the presence of the Venezuelan government on the international stage opens up the opportunity for criticism on the ground, rather than closing the possibility, as used to be the norm in the past when the government was left alone, nothing happened and they stayed in power. Now there will be the famous “statutory reprimands” of the international arena. This is better than a strategy that ended up strengthening the Venezuelan government instead.
Of course, the reprimands should not happen just for the sake of them; otherwise, the regional institutions will not work and the situation will remain the same. The idea is to find a space for sincere exchange between the presidents. In the case of Venezuela, President Maduro should be able to be questioned by his peers, just as he will be able to question them. Lasso – who held a conversation with the Venezuelan president while in Brazil – should be able to challenge Maduro, but he will not be able to claim exclusivity. Can he do such a thing when organized crime has overwhelmed Ecuador? (My excuses to the detractors of the theory of the moral equivalents).
Another reason why Maduro is less rejected nowadays has to do with the fact that countries have their own problems -some of them serious like crime in Ecuador- and they prefer “to keep quiet not to receive criticism in exchange” and maintain the debate at the presidential level. In the case of Venezuela, I hypothesize that Maduro will listen. What he makes of it will be another discussion. The appointment of a new National Electoral Council in Venezuela will allow testing the hypothesis of a struggle between the Venezuelan and the countries of the region where the former is seeking acceptance while the latter is seeking containment of Venezuelan authoritarianism (until the Venezuelan people choose to dismantle it through elections). This implies the same thing at home and abroad, the recognition of the political forces of Chavismo and the opposition.
The Venezuelan government may be moving toward new geopolitical coordinates, but the neighborhood remains committed to democracy.
Translated by José Rafael Medina
