The United States is reportedly hoping that Brazil’s radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva uses his “influence” to convince Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro to commit to a “free and fair” election following his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday.
The “free and fair” presidential election agreement — which the Maduro regime and Venezuelan opposition signed in 2023 and Blinken has repeatedly promoted over the years — has, so far, resulted in a major blunder for the Biden Administration.
Venezuela’s political situation was one of the subjects reportedly discussed in Blinken’s meeting with Lula, held on the sidelines of the G20 meeting of foreign ministers in Brazil, taking place from February 22-23.
“Secretary Blinken underscored our position that Nicolas Maduro must return to implementation of the Barbados electoral roadmap agreement to ensure competitive presidential elections in 2024,” State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday.
Blinken also allegedly “commended” Lula “for Brazil’s role in de-escalating tensions between Guyana and Venezuela over the Essequibo region.”
The “Barbados agreements” were signed in October 2023 between the Maduro regime and the Unitary Platform “opposition” coalition, negotiated under the observation of the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden. The agreements contemplate a series of steps and commitments toward celebrating a “free and fair” presidential election sometime in the second half of 2024.
In return, Biden restored the Maduro regime’s primary source of revenue through a generous oil and gas sanctions relief package that allows the state-owned PDVSA oil company to freely sell oil and gas in U.S. and international markets, such as China and India.
The Maduro regime, instead of committing to the terms of the agreement, launched a fierce wave of repression against political dissidents and made a mockery of plans for a yet-to-be-scheduled “free and fair” election.
María Corina Machado, the frontrunner candidate against Maduro in the hypothetical “free and fair” election, is currently banned from running for public office through 2030. In early February, socialist thugs attacked one of her campaign events, injuring several of her supporters and forcing her to flee from the premises.
Machado was elected in late October to run against Maduro after securing roughly 93 percent of the votes in an opposition primary election. Maduro then had the nation’s socialist-controlled courts invalidate the election, claiming that the event was “fraudulent” and part of an alleged coup against the ruling socialist regime.
María Corina Machado, banned opposition presidential primary candidate for the Vente Venezuela Party, celebrates during an election night rally in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 22, 2023. (Gaby Oraa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Despite myriad actions that Maduro and his regime committed following the October sanctions relief deal — and the lack of any indication of an imminent change of course from Maduro — the White House stated it would wait until April to commit to the terms of the agreement before reinstating the oil and gas sanctions that Biden lifted.
Following Thursday’s G20 meeting of foreign ministers, Blinken is scheduled to travel to Argentina to meet with President Javier Milei, where Venezuela will reportedly be discussed.
Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, who is currently in Washington, DC, announced on Wednesday that she will ask the Biden Administration to change its policy on Venezuela and to stop “supporting a dictatorship.”
“The continent has to have democratic values. You cannot support dictatorships; you cannot exchange dictatorship for oil,” Bullrich said at the end of the inaugural session of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
