CARACAS- “Let him drink some chamomile tea,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday, a day after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva expressed concern over the dictator’s warnings of a “bloodbath” if the opposition wins Sunday’s presidential election.
“I didn’t tell lies. I just made a comment. Those who are scared should take a drink,” Maduro said, without specifically mentioning Lula. “Peace, popular power, and the perfect civic-military-police union will triumph in Venezuela.”.
The president reiterated that there will be a “bloodbath” in Venezuela if the opposition wins the upcoming elections in Venezuela, to be held on July 28.
Maduro referred to the “Caracazo,” a social uprising in February 1989 that left thousands dead, according to reports, although the official death toll was around 300. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez (1999-2013), used this to justify the failed uprising he led on February 4, 1992, which would mark the rise of his popularity.
“I said that if, denied and transmuted, the extremist right (…) came to political power in Venezuela, there would be a bloodbath. And I’m not saying this as a fabrication, it’s that we already experienced a bloodbath on February 27 and 28,” said Maduro.
Lula’s reaction
On Monday, Lula said he was concerned by Maduro’s comments about a “bloodbath” if the opposition won.
“I was scared by Maduro’s statements that if he loses the elections there will be a bloodbath. Those who lose the elections will be bathed in votes, not blood,” said the Brazilian leader.
“Maduro has to learn: when you win, you stay (in power). When you lose, you leave. And you prepare to run in another election,” Lula da Silva added at a press conference with international agencies in Brasilia.
“I predict to those who are scared that in Venezuela we will have the biggest electoral victory in history,” insisted Maduro, who is seeking a third term that would project him to 18 years in power.
Diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia is the candidate of the main opposition alliance, which nominated him due to the impossibility of presenting former deputy María Corina Machado, the favorite in the polls and winner of the opposition primary elections, however, she was disqualified from holding public office by the Chavista leadership.
Source: With information from AFP
