Lula da Silva expresses concerns after Maduro threatens "bloodbath" if he loses presidential election to opposition

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said this Monday people should be “scared” by the comments of the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, who said that if he lost the presidential elections, there would be a “bloodbath” and “civil war” in his country.

“I was scared by that statement,” Lula said in an interview with foreign journalists, in which he revealed that he spoke twice with Maduro to warn him that if he wants Venezuelans who left the country to return, “you have to respect the democratic process.”

He added that, in democracy, “he who loses, gets a bath of votes, not a bath of blood,” and that “Maduro has to learn that when you win, you stay, and when you lose you leave and prepare for other elections.”

Last week, Maduro warned during an event broadcast on a state channel that, if he loses the presidential elections on July 28, the country could face “a bloodbath and “civil war.”

The Venezuelan’s dictator’s veiled threat came as part of a speech he gave to an audience gathered in the La Vega Parish, Caracas.

“On July 28, if you do not want Venezuela to fall into a bloodbath, into a fratricidal civil war caused by the fascists, let us guarantee the greatest success, the greatest victory in the electoral history of our people,” Maduro warned.

One week before the elections in Venezuela, opposition candidate Edmundo González, a representative of opposition leader María Corina Machado, leads the country's voting intentions.

González is currently poling at 59.1%, while Maduro has only 24.6%, according to a study by the Center for Political and Government Studies of the Andrés Bello Catholic University (CEPyG-UCAB) and the pollster Delphos.

Delphos Director Félix Seijas Rodríguez explained that, in “any of the scenarios” of high or moderate participation, there is “a difference ranging from 20% to 34% in favor of the opposition.”