Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro announces electricity rationing amid power cuts
- Plan will help deal with cuts that have also affected water supply and communications and Maduro warned against unrest in reaction to the blackouts
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday announced a 30-day plan to ration electricity following nationwide power cuts that have inflicted misery on millions of people and ignited protests, including one near the presidential palace in Caracas.
The rationing plan will help deal with the cuts that have also affected water supply and communications for days at a time, Maduro said in a speech on national television in which he also warned against unrest in reaction to the blackouts.
Hours before Maduro’s appeal for calm, protests broke out in neighbourhoods in the capital and other cities following a call by opposition leader Juan Guaido to demonstrate against the government’s failure to provide basic services. Many took to balconies and building windows to bang pots in protest and shout curses at Maduro. They also burned rubbish and blocked roads.
While police did not intervene in most cases, alleged government supporters known as “colectivos” appeared in some areas on motorbikes and threatened protesters, who quickly dispersed. The colectivos are sometimes armed and video posted on social media showed masked men as well as men firing shots in the streets.
In his speech, Maduro said colectivos and other pro-government groups should keep order as Venezuela grapples with the blackouts, which he has blamed on US-led sabotage.
“We’re confronting monsters who want to destroy Venezuela,” said Maduro, who said the electricity rationing would balance generation and transmission with consumption, with the aim of ensuring water supply.
Guaido instead blamed years of government neglect of the electrical grid.
Some of the protests on Sunday were near Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, in a direct challenge to Maduro.
“No one can put up with this. We spend almost all day without electricity,” said Karina Camacho, a 56-year-old housewife who was about to buy a chicken when electronic payment machines stopped working. “There’s been no water since [last] Monday, you can’t call by phone, we can’t pay with cards or even eat.”
The ongoing blackouts now mark another point of tension in a country paralysed by political and economic turmoil, compounding a humanitarian crisis and deepening a prolonged stand-off between two political parties vying for power.
The US supports Guaido’s claim that Maduro’s re-election last year was illegitimate. Washington has imposed oil sanctions and other economic penalties to try to force him out of power, but he has yet to show signs of backing down.
The latest power cut came just weeks after Venezuela experienced nationwide blackouts on March 7 which closed schools, offices and factories and paralysed nearly every part of the oil-rich country of 31 million.
