DDuring a virtual summit with the heads of state of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), Ortega criticized Lula for his critical stance regarding the controversial results of the July 28 elections, which gave President Nicolás Maduro 51.9% of the vote against 43.2% for opposition candidate Edmundo González.
The Sandinista leader said that Lula is one of the Latin American presidents who had a “brutal” and “cowardly” reaction for not recognizing Maduro’s victory and that he is part of the “servile, traitorous and groveling governments.”
Daniel Ortega recalled the “corruption” during Lula da Silva’s first government, such as “the Lava Jato scandals”.
“If you want me to respect you, respect me Lula. If you want the Venezuelan people to respect you, respect the victory of President Nicolás Maduro and don’t go around pretending to drag your feet,” he added.
On August 8, the Brazilian ambassador to Nicaragua, Breno de Souza Brasil Dias da Costa, left the country after being expelled by the Ortega government, according to the official version for not having attended the event commemorating the 45th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, on July 19.
In return, the Brazilian government decided to expel the Nicaraguan ambassador, Fulvia Castro.
Lula has maintained a close relationship with Ortega since 1980, when the Brazilian leader traveled to Managua for the first anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, where he also met in person with then Cuban President Fidel Castro.
In recent months, however, relations have deteriorated, mainly due to the Managua government’s “political persecution” of former Sandinistas and religious leaders.
Lula himself explained the situation last month, in a press conference with foreign correspondents in Brasilia, where he revealed that Ortega has not answered the phone since Pope Francis asked him to defend the situation of a bishop detained in Nicaragua.
Venezuela, a country with a significant community of Portuguese and Portuguese descendants, held presidential elections on July 28, after which the National Electoral Council (CNE) attributed the victory to Maduro with just over 51% of the votes, while the opposition claims that its candidate, former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, obtained almost 70% of the votes.
The Venezuelan opposition and several countries in the international community have denounced electoral fraud and demanded that the voting records be presented for independent verification, which the CNE says is unfeasible due to a “cyberattack” it was allegedly the target of.
The election results have been contested in the streets, with demonstrations repressed by security forces, resulting in more than 2,200 arrests, 27 deaths and 192 injuries.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) said Monday it would abide by the Supreme Court’s (TSJ) “unequivocal” decision to validate President Nicolás Maduro’s controversial re-election despite allegations of fraud.
In a statement, the CNE stated that it “complies with the decision and, within the legal deadline, will comply with what was ordered by the Electoral Chamber” of the TSJ, which requested the entity to publish in the Official Gazette the already announced result of the presidential elections, held on July 28.
The court, controlled by magistrates sympathetic to the regime, confirmed Maduro’s victory through a judicial review whose details are unknown and in which representatives of the main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), were not invited to participate.
The PUD claims that its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the presidential elections by a large margin, and so it published “83.5% of the voter registrations”, collected by witnesses and polling station staff on election day, to reinforce its claim.
At the same time, he asked the CNE, like much of the international community, to publish the disaggregated results of the elections, as provided for in the calendar.
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Source: https://www.noticiasaominuto.com/mundo/2621656/rastejante-e-traidor-nicaragua-declara-corte-de-relacoes-com-brasil
