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Venezuela announces two-day week as it battles energy crisis Venezuela declares two-day week in desperate attempt to save energy
(about 5 hours later)
Venezuela’s public employees will work only on Monday and Tuesday as the country grapples with an electricity crisis. First it was the three-day weekend; now it’s the two-day working week. Crippled by drought, Venezuela’s government has taken drastic measures as water levels at the country’s largest hydroelectric dam plunge to critical levels.
President Nicolás Maduro announced on Tuesday that the government was slashing working hours for at least two weeks in an attempt to save energy. At the beginning of April, the Socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, decreed Fridays non-working days for public sector staff, and on Monday the government announced four-hour power outages nationwide. Maduro followed on Tuesday with news that government offices would function only on Mondays and Tuesdays for at least two weeks in an attempt to save energy in the oil-rich but cash-strapped country.
Related: Venezuela tops list of countries most vulnerable to low oil pricesRelated: Venezuela tops list of countries most vulnerable to low oil prices
He said the water level behind the nation’s largest dam had fallen to near its minimum operating level thanks to a severe drought. Experts say lack of planning and maintenance is also to blame. Local media reported that protests and looting broke out late on Tuesday in and around the capital, Caracas, and the country’s second largest city, Maracaibo, as people demonstrated against the blackouts and continued shortage of food and medicine.
The country’s socialist administration gave nearly 3 million public workers Fridays off earlier this month, and on Monday initiated daily four-hour blackouts around the country. Protesters chanted: “We want food”, the El Nacional reported. Photographs posted on Twitter showsupermarkets and drug stores with shattered windows in Maracaibo. Maduro warned that those who reacted with violence would face “the full weight of the law”.
The government is now extending the Friday holidays to primary school teachers, though it appears employees of public hospitals and state-run supermarkets will still have to work. The president, who was elected in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chávez, has been hit by an opposition attempt to organise a referendum to remove him from office. His approval rating has plummeted amid spiralling inflation, a deep recession and widespread food shortages.
The development came as the elections council agreed to give opposition leaders a document allowing them to begin the process of seeking a referendum to remove Maduro. The speaker of the opposition-controlled national assembly, Henry Ramos Allup, called the cut to the working week a “decree for vagrancy”.
Opposition legislators chained themselves to the council’s office last week to protest against its failure to provide the paperwork for the first step toward collecting the nearly 4m signatures needed to trigger the referendum. Venezuelans have reacted with disbelief at the measures, although staff have been assured they will be paid for the days they are sent home. Some workers have been using their Fridays off to queue for groceries; others have been staying at home to watch TV while using the air conditioning, leading critics to conclude that time off is not an effective energy-saving measure.
“Today we took a first step to begin the recall of Maduro,” opposition deputy Elias Matta tweeted. “We the people support change, there is no way to stop it.” The government blames the energy crisis on a prolonged drought caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon, but critics say mismanagement and a lack of maintenance at the Guri dam, which provides two-thirds of all Venezuela’s electricity, has exacerbated the situation.
Venezuelans reacted with disbelief to the news that most public workers would hardly be going into the office. Workers will be paid for the days they are sent home. Some have been using their Fridays off to wait in lines to buy groceries and other goods. Others have been going home to watch TV and run the air conditioning, leading critics to say the time off is not an effective energy-saving measure. “The Guri has practically become a desert,” Maduro said as he announced the two-day week. His government would request “urgent humanitarian aid” from international organisations to ease the energy and water crises, he added.
Power outages have been a chronic problem. Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez promised to solve the problem in 2010, but little has improved. Related: Venezuela food shortages: 'No one can explain why a rich country has no food' | Virginia Lopez
Maduro’s approval rating has plummeted amid spiralling inflation, a deep recession and widespread food shortages. But they are only the latest of the country’s chronic problems. Venezuelans face food and medicine shortages, one of the world’s highest murder rates, and sky-high inflation that is expected to reach 500% this year.
Despite the dire straits the country is in, removing him from office will not be easy. Banknotes are also in short supply, according to a report by Bloomberg. After scrambling to print new bills to keep up with inflation, the government has fallen behind on its payments to currency-printing companies, which in turn are turning down new orders.
Scheduling a referendum requires another petition drive, in which the opposition must gather signatures from 20% of the electorate, or around 4m voters. And if the vote were ever held, the president would be removed only if the number of anti-Maduro votes exceeded the 7.6m votes he received in the 2013 election. Amid the chaos, the elections council on Tuesday agreed to allow opposition leaders to collect signatures from voters to try to force a recall referendum to remove the president from office halfway through his six-year term.
In December’s parliamentary elections, opposition candidates mustered only 7.7m votes even though they won control of the legislature by a landslide. “Today we took a first step to begin the recall of Maduro,” tweeted the opposition’s deputy, Elias Matta. “We, the people, support change. There is no way to stop it.”
Related: Salomón Rondón: ‘Life in Caracas is not life … the city is chaos’Related: Salomón Rondón: ‘Life in Caracas is not life … the city is chaos’
Timing is also of the essence for the opposition because for new elections to be called Maduro would need to be removed by the end of the year. After that, his six-year term ending in 2019 would be completed by his vice-president — a move seen as unlikely to produce the radical change many Venezuelans are desperate for. The opposition, which won control of the parliament in December elections, has been collecting the nearly 200,000 signatures it needs to trigger the next stage towards the referendum. It has 30 days to collect the signatures but the opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, says it will take only hours. “We can’t waste time,” he said.
Still, David Smilde, a Tulane University sociologist who has lived in Venezuela for decades said the scope of the opposition’s victory, as partial as it may seem, should not be underestimated. Already, the government-stacked supreme court has stymied a number of laws approved by the opposition congress and on Monday struck down an attempt by lawmakers to pass a constitutional amendment cutting short Maduro’s term. Removing Maduro from office will not be easy. If the opposition were to collect 200,000 signatures, or 1% of the electorate, it would then need to garner 4 million signatures in a further petition for a referendum.
“This could’ve been a sticking point because at any point the process can get hung up for weeks or months,” said Smilde. If the vote were held, the president would be removed only if the anti-Maduro votes exceeded the 7.6m votes he received in the 2013 election. In December’s parliamentary polls, opposition candidates mustered only 7.7m votes, even though they won control of the legislature by a landslide.
The immediate consequences are likely to deflate social tensions and more strident calls for street protests like the ones that in 2014 led to the death of more than 40 people. A march called by the opposition on Wednesday to demand action from the electoral council is now being repurposed as an event to collect petition signatures, several opposition leaders said.
The move is also likely to ease international pressure on Maduro, who has been fighting criticism from the US and others that his government is blocking attempts at a peaceful democratic transition. This week, an opposition congressional delegation was scheduled to travel to Washington where it was expected to ask the Organisation of American States (OAS) to initiate proceedings to suspend Venezuela from the hemispheric group.
The OAS secretary general, Luis Almargo, a harsh critic of the way the government tried to tilt the playing field ahead of December’s legislative elections, expressed on Twitter his “satisfaction” at the “positive decision” taken by the electoral council.