Energy problems threaten Venezuelan authorities with election defeat

The Venezuelan authorities accused the opposition of organizing another act of sabotage: during President Nicolas Maduro’s address to his fellow citizens live on national television, the electricity supply to a significant part of the country was interrupted. Mr. Maduro’s opponents, in turn, are confident that the Venezuelan leadership is leading the energy industry to final collapse.

The power supply was interrupted on Monday evening. A significant part of Venezuela, including the capital Caracas, was left without electricity. The outage occurred as President Nicolas Maduro addressed his fellow citizens live on national television. From this, the Venezuelan authorities concluded that this was a deliberate act of sabotage.

Similar large-scale power outages are increasingly occurring in Venezuela. Previously, the country's leadership invariably noted that the reason for this was hostile activity on the part of certain far-right forces working for the United States. In April, Mr. Maduro ordered all the country’s power plants to be placed under armed guard. Then, on his orders, a special security and intelligence service was created in the country's electrical grid system. However, these measures did not help to cope with the problems.

Electricity problems are causing increasing anger among Venezuelans. On Monday, the country's Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez said his department was conducting an operation to prevent unrest in those states that lost electricity. In the near future, the energy collapse could lead to negative consequences for the authorities: the country's residents will express their attitude towards it on December 8 at the municipal elections.

How the economic situation pushed Nicolas Maduro into opposition

On November 10, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro demanded that parliament grant him emergency powers for a year. The president explained his demand by the need to strengthen the fight against corruption and “economic sabotage.” To approve this initiative, the ruling party lacks one vote in parliament, but getting it will not be easy: the opposition has already promised to prevent the usurpation of power by the president, whom he accused of being unfit for the job.

Pavel Tarasenko

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