Lula cosies up to Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s autocrat

In 2005 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was then just two years into his first term as Brazil’s president, declared that Venezuela had “an excess of democracy”. In fact even then democracy was under threat. Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s left-wing populist president, had recently introduced a law that restricted what could be broadcast about state officials on radio and TV. In 2007 he called for a constitutional referendum that sought to expand his own powers while abolishing term limits. Nearly two decades later, Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’s unpopular successor, has taken advantage of his mentor’s anti-democratic policies and is ruling as a dictator. During his decade in power the economy has collapsed by 75%. Some 7m people, or a quarter of the population, have emigrated. Despite this, Lula’s views appear to remain stubbornly the same.