Daniel Ortega accuses Lula and Petro over their positions on Venezuelan elections

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has attacked his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, calling him a “drag queen” because of his stance on the July elections in Venezuela, the official results of which are still pending. doubt By the opposition and the international community.

He also attacked Colombian President Gustavo Petro for not accepting the results of the Venezuelan elections, which increased friction between the two countries.

“The way you have acted, Lula, in the face of the victory of the legitimate president of Venezuela is shameful. Shameful! Repeating the slogans of the Yankees, the Europeans, the slow governments of Latin America. You are also crawling, Lula! Don’t tell me that your efforts have been extraordinary,” Ortega said Monday during the 11th Extraordinary Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of our America (ALBA), held online.

Ortega is one of Maduro’s main allies, and one of the few leaders to acknowledge the socialist leader’s dubious victory.

“To Petro, what can I say to Petro? Poor Petro, poor Petro. I see it as a competition with Lula to see who will be the leader who will represent the Yankees in Latin America. But poor Petro does not have the power that Brazil has,” Ortega said.

And so the Colombian President respondedThrough your X account“We have called Daniel Ortega a procrastinator, just because we want a peaceful and democratic solution through negotiation in Venezuela. Such an insult allows me to answer: at least I do not offend the human rights of the people of my country, let alone the rights of my comrades in arms and those who fight against dictatorships.

Elections in Venezuela It has been under scrutiny. By several Latin American countries after the opposition led by leader Maria Corina Machado and presidential candidate Edmundo González denounced that according to the records they had, Nicolás Maduro would have lost, despite Official results issued by the National Elections Council (CNE).

Lula da Silva joined the opposition to the election results, saying that “Maduro knows he owes the world an explanation,” after the National Electoral Commission refused to publish the minutes that would prove the presumed victory.

Relations between Brazil and Nicaragua, formerly long-time allies, have gradually deteriorated as the social and political crisis in Managua has deepened.

Ortega defends expulsion of Brazilian ambassador to Managua

In early August, Nicaragua severed diplomatic relations with Brazil by expelling its ambassador over the failure of Lula da Silva’s efforts to mediate the political crisis in the Central American country.

According to Ortega, the conflict arose after Pope Francis asked the Brazilian president to call for the release of the detainees. Bishop Rolando Alvarez, He is now released from prison and exiled to Rome.

“One day he went to visit Pope Lula, and then the Brazilian Foreign Ministry called and they were asking… He wanted to talk to me because he had a message from the Pope. It was very clearly stated. We don’t need intermediaries and we didn’t ask Lula to be an intermediary. We didn’t answer Lula and he got upset,” Ortega said.

Nicaragua has been in a social and political crisis since 2018, when protests erupted against President Ortega’s government.

The self-described leftist president of Nicaragua has lost socialist political allies in Latin America, such as Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Gabriel Boric in Chile.

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