Dear President Lula:
The last time we met was many years ago, on the occasion of the first congress of the Sandinista Front held in Managua in July 1991, when you gave a speech at the inaugural session. It was a speech I never forgot, and it helped us set the course for those of us seeking to strengthen a democratic current within that party that had just suffered an electoral defeat that ended the revolution.
You said in that speech that the mistake of the left was insisting on the difference between proletarian democracy and bourgeois democracy, when there was only one kind of democracy, which was the one in which power was determined by the votes of the citizens.
To Daniel Ortega and the orthodox manual followers who supported him and proclaimed that it had been a mistake to hand over revolutionary power in elections “under the blackmail of Yankee imperialism,” your words were not well received. I remember that Edmundo Jarquín, who was with me among the reformers, called me that night to say that the orthodox had left you alone at the hotel, so we went to find you and took you to Edmundo’s house, where we spent long hours talking about the future of the left in Latin America, which had to be democratic or it would not be.
Now, all of us who accompanied you that night in Managua are in exile, stripped of our Nicaraguan citizenship, for opposing the two-headed dictatorship of Ortega and his wife, a satrapy that has no parallel in the history of our homeland.
Eleven years after that congress, in 2002, you won the presidential elections after three previous attempts, and since then you have been elected three times, and now seek your fourth term, always faithful to Brazil’s democratic system, and respectful of electoral results when they do not favor you. I am sure that if anyone dared to say that there would be no more elections in Brazil, you would be the first to take to the streets to defend the right to choose; because, indeed, there is only one kind of democracy, the one that depends on votes, a democracy that is neither right nor left, and part of it is whoever respects it.
When the electoral fraud occurred in Venezuela in 2024 in favor of the dictator Nicolás Maduro, and Brazil demanded that the records be presented, Ortega attacked you. I quote his phrases: “The way Lula has behaved regarding the victory of the legitimate president of Venezuela is shameful, shameful, repeating the slogans of the Yankees, the Europeans, the bootlickers of Latin America…”.
“You are also crawling, Lula, you are crawling…” “Who are you serving? The Yankees? The Europeans? Or are you seeking leadership to become the representative of the Yankees in Latin America?” And he sealed his diatribe with the breaking of diplomatic relations with Brazil. All because you defended the legitimacy of the vote in Venezuela, a cause that goes beyond borders.
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This year, Ortega proclaimed, without any shame, that there will be no more elections in Nicaragua, thereby abolishing democracy in my country, which has put us back on the political map. On August 19, the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) reviewed the case and approved the call for an extraordinary meeting of Foreign Ministers of the hemisphere, because “representative democracy, an indispensable condition for stability, peace, and development in the region, no longer exists in Nicaragua.” The resolution was supported by all member countries except two: one abstention from Mexico, and a vote against from Brazil.
Your ambassador to the OAS argued: “We are all in favor of human rights. But we do not want any medicine to kill the patient.” This statement, Mr. President, departs radically from your unwavering positions in favor of democracy, which must be defended by both left and right governments. The patient, who buries elections and proclaims himself perpetual dictator, can live many years on assisted breathing.
It no longer matters whether Ortega is left-wing, as he proclaims in his archaic speeches, or has become a traditional right-wing dictator. Dictatorships have only one dark color, and they must be fought from any position on the democratic ideological spectrum.
Ortega has suppressed elections. Do not deny Nicaragua, Mr. President, the right to freely choose; that same right that can make you president of Brazil once again.
Please do not risk creating a terrible confusion that makes the people of Nicaragua believe that the only way for Brazil to clearly oppose Ortega and his family dictatorship is with the victory of Flávio Bolsonaro and all that he represents.
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