Pope Francis and the presidents of Brazil, France and Colombia, among other international actors, propose a new stage of dialogue to resolve the political crisis in Venezuela. Is a negotiation possible in the midst of mutual accusations of “fascism”, “terrorism” and “coups d’état”? Experts believe so.
Pope Francis said this week in his annual message to the diplomatic corps in the Vatican that he wanted negotiations to begin for “the common good of the country” and to resolve its “serious political crisis” after the controversial election results in July.
When explaining his absence at the swearing-in of Nicolás Maduro as ruler for six more years, Colombian President Gustavo Petro also insisted on the need to “maintain the thesis of the broadest possible political dialogue in Venezuela,” as well as the suspension of economic sanctions and the possibility of repeating the presidential election.
After Maduro’s inauguration, on Friday in Caracas, the heads of state of France and Brazil, Emmanuel Macron and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, also joined the call for new negotiations after talking about bilateral issues by telephone.
“France and Brazil are willing to facilitate a resumption of exchanges, which can allow a return of democracy and stability in Venezuela,” the French presidency said in a statement released on Friday.
Lula, who together with Petro and former Mexican President Andrés López Obrador led efforts to have Chavismo publish and allow independent verification of all the minutes of the July vote, renewed his call for dialogue this Saturday.
“Brazil also urges Venezuelan political forces to dialogue and seek mutual understanding, based on full respect for human rights, with a view to resolving internal controversies,” he said in a statement.
Both Pope Francis and the heads of government demanded respect for human rights in Venezuela and, in the case of the leaders, insisted on the need to stop the persecution of dissidents by the Maduro government.
France called for the immediate release of all those detained for political reasons. Brazil, for its part, recognized the “gestures of detente” by the ruling party by releasing 1,500 detainees in recent months, but deplored “the recent episodes” of arrests, threats and persecution of opponents.
Is there room for dialogue?
The political situation in Venezuela is “an absolutely deadlocked game in the current circumstances,” according to political scientist Piero Trepiccione, who highlights how the July election, called to “oxygenate” internal disputes, failed in its mission.
According to their analysis, Venezuela is torn between an opposition that “maximized” the expectations of claiming what it considers to be its electoral victory and a political project that “is clinging to power, without facilitating a democratic discussion” of the controversies.
“This forces us to look for alternative formulas and mechanisms that can produce concrete results that benefit the Venezuelan population,” he tells Voice of America.
The proposal of Macron, Petro and Lula, as well as the Pope, “seeks to reopen the game,” he believes. “It is not an easy task, but not impossible considering the history of political transitions in the world,” says Trepiccione.
The opposition accuses Maduro of carrying out “a coup d’état” by swearing in as ruler without having won the elections, while its leader María Corina Machado remains in hiding after denouncing that she was detained and released by police authorities after the protest on Thursday. in Chacao.
Edmundo González, who claims to have won the election based on the voting records, postponed his promise to return to the country of his exile to assume the presidency, citing risks to his integrity. Maduro and his spokesmen, meanwhile, accuse the opposition of allying with foreign actors and “mercenaries” for a “conspiracy.”
In the first 10 days of January, the government arrested 75 people for political reasons, according to the NGO Foro Penal. This Saturday, Maduro said that he is preparing together with Cuba and Nicaragua to “go into armed struggle,” after calls for military intervention by former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe and exiled commissioner Iván Simonovis.
The Maduro government and the opposition Democratic Unitary Platform began a negotiation process facilitated by the Kingdom of Norway in August 2021, although these dialogues had begun informally two years earlier.
This mechanism allowed the signing of political agreements in Barbados in October 2023, but the actors denounced their non-compliance by the counterpart before, during and after the election.
The end of the Norwegian formula
The dialogue facilitated by Norway already seems to have expired and is not an ideal alternative for the current crisis in Venezuela, according to political scientist Pablo Andrés Quintero.
“There is no way to revive him at this time. They must create another space for negotiation,” says the analyst to the VOA.
Quintero predicts that any new dialogue formula in Venezuela will have key actors, such as the United States, governed as of the 20th of this month by President Donald Trump, under the uncertainty of whether or not it will maintain economic sanctions and direct talks with Caracas, as expected. the Joe Biden administration did.
“Dialogue and negotiation always have to be present, on the table. We must resume avenues of dialogue, de-escalate the conflict and mutual accusations,” he says.
Quintero also considers vital the involvement of leaders from other nations, such as Macron, Lula and Petro, in these eventual dialogues about Venezuela.
“The options are reduced and dialogue is going to be necessary, with leaders, that helps a lot, we must value these efforts and insist on the possibility of solving things in Venezuela,” he points out.
Trepiccione, for his part, warns of an “exacerbation of the political conflict” in Venezuela after the elections, with opposition complaints of fraud and the persecution and arrest of hundreds of opposition activists, human rights defenders and journalists.
“July 28 opened more scars, more wounds, more reasonable doubts about the result of the election and that has sharpened the political confrontation in Venezuela,” he says, also convinced that the Norwegian formula seems to have come to an end.
“There has to be a relaunch of both the format and the actors in the dialogue. I think that Norway’s mechanism effectively delivered what it had to, I don’t see any possibility of resuming it, it has to be another mechanism,” he concludes.
It also supports the notion that Trump and his candidate for Secretary of State, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, will be decisive in these negotiations between the government and the opposition, which Washington says it supports as the winner of the presidential election.
The cooperation of Petro and Lula, two left-wing leaders, also “guarantees in some way” the participation in these dialogues of nations similar to Maduro, such as Russia and China, believes Trepiccione, director of the Venezuelan analysis center Gumilla.
Volker Türk, High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, considered this week that “dialogue is essential” in Venezuela, declaring himself “deeply concerned” about the new arrests of opponents and activists.
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