Lula's Game: Interests, Influences, and Dilemmas With Venezuela

By Misión Verdad – Aug 8, 2024

The post-electoral conflict created by Edmundo González and María Corina Machado after July 28 has transcended Venezuelan borders, giving rise to a new scenario of confrontation and hostile pressures on Venezuela.

Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil, has taken on an active role in this context, as a symbol of balance and containment in the face of attempts to create an international consensus in favor of the coup agenda against the re-elected President Nicolás Maduro.

The Brazilian president’s participation takes place in a dilemma that includes, on the one hand, a left-wing political-ideological approach accompanied by his own geopolitical project—which combines aspirations for regional and global leadership—and, on the other hand, the traditional logic petrified into the Brazilian state that would pursue an international alignment with the United States and Europe, the “Western world.”

Brazil, Lula, and the results of July 28
After the results were made known, and in the face of the narrative of fraud—with aims of a coup—promoted by the Edmundo González/María Corina Machado duo, Celso Amorim, Lula’s special envoy for the elections in Venezuela, began conversations with both President Maduro and the former presidential candidate of the far-right opposition Unitary Platform, in which he advocated for the transparency of the results and showed confidence in Venezuela’s sovereign electoral process. This statement defined the first position of Brazil, which, from that moment on, became a recognized mediator in relation to Venezuela.

In doing so, Brazil distinguished itself from the statements made by Perú, Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and numerous others, who took it upon themselves to recognize González as so-called “president-elect,” or those of the US and Chile, who, without outwardly granting González that status, have decided to question the legitimacy of the process and the veracity of the results published by the Venezuelan National Electoral Council. Lula called for the conflict to be resolved through sovereign institutional means, and without foreign pressure.

“It is normal to argue. So how do you resolve the dispute? By presenting the voting records,” said the Brazilian president. “If there are doubts about the voting records, the opposition must file an appeal and wait for the decision, which we will have to abide by. I am convinced that there has been a normal and peaceful electoral process.”

While this position has been shared by México and Colombia, it is Brazil that has consolidated a leading role. This was evident in the bilateral dialogue held last week between US President Joe Biden and President Lula regarding the Venezuelan situation.

Interests and calculations
Lula’s incentives to position himself as a mediator in the Venezuelan conflict are multifaceted and strategic. Regionally, he seeks to realize his aspirations for leadership within Latin America and the Caribbean, and to project himself as a major player in the resolution of first-order conflicts.

Globally, this move would allow Brazil to strengthen its position as an emerging power and demonstrate Lula’s ability to exert influence in complex international scenarios, under a role of responsibility in the construction of a multipolar order that seeks to dilute US primacy in global affairs.

If we were to list how the game is structured and Lula’s interests, they would be as follows:

Venezuela’s possible entry into BRICS+: the expansion of BRICS in 2023 represented a delicate geopolitical balance in which dynamic regions of global geography obtained proportional representation. However, Argentina’s decline as a potential member left a void in Latin America. Venezuela, with its international weight and strategic resources, emerges as the natural candidate to occupy this space. However, in the event of a González Urrutia government, the scenario that took place with Milei’s Argentina, which rejected the invitation to BRICS, would be repeated.
Limiting the US agenda in the region: Lula’s diplomatic actions in relation to the current situation in Venezuela reveal a strategy of containing external pressures aimed at ignoring Venezuelan institutions. The Brazilian president seeks to position himself as a moderate factor in the region, and thus differentiate himself from the hardline so-called “rules-based order” represented by the US, inclined to re-establish a new “Lima Group.” This position, while not significantly compromising their working relationship with Washington, demonstrates Brazil’s greater autonomy in the regional context.
A message to Russia and China: the Brazilian mediation initiative reveals a geopolitical strategy that seeks to consolidate the country’s leadership in the region and project an image of a global player. In this way, Brazil sends a clear message to the US, highlighting the autonomy of its foreign policy and, in turn, to new powers such as Russia and China, to whom it expresses its desire to reassert itself as a solid regional power pole.
Ideological affinity with Nicolás Maduro: regardless of the internal balances that Lula must maintain to guarantee governability in his country, it is no less true that his unionist background and the workers’ struggles within the Brazilian Workers’ Party bring the Brazilian president closer politically and ideologically to his Venezuelan counterpart. Both consider themselves left-wing or progressive leaders and defend the strategic autonomy of the region. On the other hand, María Corina Machado and her subrogate, Edmundo González, represent an echo chamber in the Venezuelan sphere that strengthens Bolsonarism in the Brazilian internal context.

The dilemmas and barriers
It is worth stating that the Brazilian state operates with a systemic logic beyond the temporal power of the presidency. This institutional matrix, rooted and resilient, holds tangible barriers to presidential initiatives that are manifested in the autonomy of institutions, such as, for example, Itamaraty (the foreign ministry).

Brazilian diplomacy, in particular, has sought to distinguish itself as an autonomous entity by exercising its foreign policy beyond changes of government and programs.

Moreover, the Brazilian political system, characterized by coalition presidentialism and a pragmatic multiparty system in which sectoral interests prevail over ideologies, requires a unique ability to build and maintain solid consensus. Lula has proven to be a master of this art, unlike Rousseff, who underestimated the importance of alliances, leading to a fragmentation of power and a crisis of governability.

Thus, the first dilemmas facing Lula are, on the one hand, the bureaucratic logic of Brazilian diplomacy, which is framed within the tradition and defense of liberal principles, and on the other, the complex political-economic alliances that made his victory in the 2022 elections possible.

The way to overcome these obstacles will depend on his ability to distribute across these hands the benefits that Brazil will gain in the geopolitical sphere, not to mention the positive reputation that will be reflected in the increase in soft power in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Lula is playing in a minefield. The incentives are high, but so are the risks and dilemmas, as a worsening of the post-election conflict could expose him to difficult decisions, between increasing Brazil’s geopolitical value or mitigating the internal contradictions arising from mediating in Venezuela.

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Looking into the near future
Lula’s interest involves both ideological and geopolitical elements. Despite the ideological and foreign policy harmony between Maduro and Lula, Brazil’s experience with extremist governments, such as that represented by Javier Milei in Argentina, has highlighted the challenges that this implies for the Brazilian project of regional integration.

A possible government in Venezuela led by figures close to Bolsonaro, such as Edmundo González or María Corina Machado, would add yet more obstacles to Lula’s integrationist project, which would weaken its construction or simply postpone it, as has been happening.

On the other hand, if the opinion polls projecting Donald Trump as the winner of the US elections are confirmed, Lula will face a complex geopolitical scenario. Brazil’s close relationship with China and its participation in the BRICS could be affected, especially in the context of the growing tension between Washington and Beijing. This situation could have significant implications for Brazilian foreign policy.

At this point, the relations between Brazil, Colombia, and México have not only served to withhold and contain a “Lima Group 2.0” that supports the coup strategy of Edmundo González/María Corina Machado, but also imposes a framework of understanding within the same region that succeeds in preventing powers outside Latin America, such as the US and its imperial allies, from having the last word.

(Misión Verdad)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/AU