Breno Altman: 'The Relationship Between Lula and Chavismo Has Always Been One of Alliance and Divergence'

The Brazilian journalist spoke to Peoples Dispatch about the statements from the Brazilian President regarding the situation in Venezuela

On August 15, the governments of Brazil and Colombia announced on different channels that Venezuela should hold fresh elections or organize a cohabitation government with the far-right. This about-face came after having called for caution and to wait for the results of the investigations initiated by the Supreme Court of Justice regarding the electoral results. At the time, this had radically distanced the government of the two nations from the position of conservative and centrist leaders of the region who, following the position of the United States, recognized Edmundo González as the winner of the July 28 elections.

Brazilian President Lula stated his opinion on the solution to the political conflict in Venezuela in an interview with Rádio T, “Maduro has six more months of his mandate. If he acts with common sense, he could call for new elections, forming an electoral committee with members of the opposition and international observers.”

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro quickly responded, rejecting calls for redo elections by his counterparts in Brazil and Colombia. He declared that “Venezuela has the sovereignty of an independent country with a Constitution, it has institutions, and the conflicts in Venezuela of any kind are solved among Venezuelans, with their institutions, with their law and with their Constitution.”

Peoples Dispatch editor Zoe Alexandra conducted an interview with Brazilian journalist Breno Altman, who lays out the context of why Brazil’s government decided to call for new elections in Venezuela.

Read the full interview below, translated from Portuguese and lightly edited for clarity:

Zoe Alexandra: Lula and Petro have defended the idea that the “electoral crisis” in Venezuela must have another way out, and that could be new elections or a “cohabitation” government. Where does this new stance come from? Was it really a surprise?

Breno Altman: The proposal is to call new elections or to set up a cohabitation government that would lead to new elections. These two proposals are not exactly new, and have been circulating for days in the dialogues between the Brazilian and Colombian governments and also in the consultations that the Brazilian government has held with the European Union and the United States.

It’s not surprising that Brazil and Colombia are trying to mediate between the opposition and Chavismo, between the United States and the European Union, on the one hand, with China and Russia on the other. This posture of mediation implies an unbridled search for a solution that could be accepted by both parties.

This is now becoming increasingly complex. There is a result in the electoral process in Venezuela that Chavismo defends, both from an institutional point of view and from the point of view of popular mobilization. What the extreme right wants is international support to try to impose its supposed victory in Venezuela.

ZA: Before the elections, we saw that Lula was already making statements critical of Maduro. How can you explain this escalation in relations? How have relations between Lula and Maduro been in the past?

BA: The relationship between Lula and Chavismo has always been one of alliance and divergence. They have always remained in the same camp of alliances and the construction of a counter-hegemonic bloc in Latin America and the world. But there have always been differences.

Firstly, because they are different processes. Chavismo represents an attempt at revolutionary change within the legality of democracy, but a revolutionary change in Venezuela, a transition of state power from the landowning classes to the working classes, the construction of a social economic system different from capitalism. At least these are the objectives clearly set out by Chavismo.

The process in Brazil is different. It’s a process that doesn’t call liberal democracy into question, much less the capitalist market economy. It is a process of change, of social and economic inclusion within this capitalist order and without breaking with the liberal democratic state, without having as its objective the transition of power from the bourgeoisie to the working classes.

This has always led to disagreements. While Chavismo has clearly always had an anti-imperialist attitude, the Brazilian government, with Lula or Dilma, had a more mediated position depending on the concrete conditions in Brazil and the strategy that was designed for those concrete circumstances. In the current period, you have a deepening of tensions because of the specific situation of the Lula government.

Lula, Petro, and Washington’s Diplomatic Escalation Against Venezuela

ZA: For many people, the fact that progressive governments took a stand against a popular government was shocking. Can you help us understand some of the internal and external dynamics which led to this development?

BA: I believe that the Lula government and President Lula are concerned about the Brazilian municipal elections scheduled for October. And he believes that defending the Maduro government will take votes away from the PT and its allied parties, especially in the big capitals, particularly in São Paulo.

We have to take into account that the logic of Brazilian foreign policy is one of active non-alignment, that is, seeking to build on negotiations with the United States, the European Union, China and Russia, seeking an intermediate situation in which it is possible to obtain advantages for Brazil, for South America. In this logic, Brazilian foreign policy avoids steps that could lead to a break in relations with the United States, although Brazil’s economic and political relations are privileged with China and other counter-hegemonic countries.

At no point does Brazil assume a position aligned with US imperialism. Nor does Brazil wish to adopt steps that would represent a break with the United States and the European Union. In this Brazilian foreign policy, which is currently underway of active non-alignment, there is also a bet that relations between South America, European governments led by social democracy, liberalism, specifically France and Germany, and also relations with the Democratic Party in the United States can help constitute and reinforce this non-aligned intermediary role of Brazil and can also help constitute an alliance that helps the Brazilian left fight the extreme right in our country.

I think that the tensions between Lula and Maduro have to do with this, that is, with the needs of President Lula’s government or the way President Lula sees these needs, to prevent a break with the United States and the European Union. From an external point of view and from an internal point of view, preventing a split, a split that would be dangerous for this broad front, for this alliance between the left and liberals that was formed to elect President Lula against Bolsonaro. Supporting Venezuela could jeopardize this broad front. President Lula is calculating that if he will openly support Venezuela, recognizing Maduro’s victory, it could also cause electoral damage.

ZA: Can you elaborate on the similarities between supporters of Bolsonaro in Brazil and those of the extreme right in Venezuela?

BA: I think that the Venezuelan far right, like Bolsonaro, is reacting to the elections and the electoral result in Venezuela in a similar way, including the one adopted by the Republican Party in the United States. In other words, it’s trying to create a situation of chaos, violence, a coup, a situation of mutiny against the electoral result. Both to try to overturn the result and to try to establish by force a government controlled by them and, at the limit, to create a permanent environment of mobilization of this extreme right to keep the extreme right permanently in action, disputing the streets, disputing the networks destabilizing the government, building itself as an alternative either by electoral means in the next moment, or as a coup alternative.

We have to understand what the extreme right is in the world today. It’s a political expression of a sector of the bourgeoisie, whether Brazilian, North American, Venezuelan or European, which promotes the liberal reforms necessary for the recovery of the rate of profit of capital at a time of structural crisis, reforms that are going to reduce wages, that are going to reduce rights, that are going to reduce public services, that are going to make labor relations more precarious, that are going to have consequences for the international division of labor.

In the case of the United States, this means closing its market to the economies of other countries. In the case of Brazil, this means the will of the Brazilian bourgeoisie or sectors of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie to insert themselves ever more deeply into the imperialist system linked to the United States. This extreme right believes that these reforms can only be carried out by reducing democracy, by reducing popular sovereignty and by building authoritarian governments, dictatorial governments, governments that break with democratic instruments.

An extreme right-wing victory in Venezuela would represent the emergence of an extremely authoritarian government, probably a dictatorship that would crush the achievements of Chavismo. That was the role of the Temer government and the Bolsonaro government after the overthrow of the Dilma government in 2016.

They have an ideological identity, a programmatic identity and they react against the electoral result in the same way. Bolsonaro, the González-Corina duo, and Trump are reacting in an anti-democratic way, provoking violence, provoking riots, trying to establish a relationship of forces that pushes the country towards a scenario of either a coup d’état or a strengthening of the role of this extreme right.

(Peoples Dispatch)