CARACAS (AFP) -
A defiant
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro urged supporters to launch a general
strike and "rebellion" if the opposition succeeds in ousting him from
office in a referendum.
Maduro's fiery May Day speech came as
Venezuela's emboldened opposition prepared on Tuesday to present more
than 10 times the roughly 200,000 signatures needed to begin organizing a
referendum to remove the unpopular president, blamed by many for the
country's deep economic crisis.
Maduro vowed to fight for his job,
despite a deep crisis in the country that has seen riots and looting in
the second city over four-hour daily blackouts introduced to save
energy.
"If the oligarchy some day does something against me and
manages to take this palace, I order you to declare yourselves in
rebellion and decree an indefinite general strike," he told supporters
massed outside the presidential palace on Sunday.
Maduro told them
the referendum "is an option, not an obligation. Here the only
obligation is the presidential election and that will be in 2018."
A
recent poll found that more than two-thirds of Venezuelans want Maduro,
elected president by a razor-thin margin in 2013, to leave office.
Once-booming
Venezuela, which has the world's largest proven oil reserves, has
plunged into economic chaos as global crude prices have collapsed. It
has been in recession since 2013.
The import-dependent country
faces acute shortages of food and basic goods like toilet paper due to a
lack of currency, more than 96 percent of which it gets from oil sales.
Maduro
has vowed to press on with the socialist "revolution" launched in 1999
by his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, which has given Venezuela a
government-led economy.
- Recall vote this year? -
If the
electoral board accepts the signatures collected by the opposition as
valid -- far from a sure bet, since opponents say the board is stacked
with Maduro cronies -- the opposition will then have to collect four
million more for the board to organize the vote.
Opponents are
racing to hold the referendum before the end of the year. According to
Venezuela's constitution, after January 2017 a successful recall vote
would transfer power to Maduro's vice president rather than trigger new
elections.
Jesus Torrealba, spokesman for the MUD opposition
coalition that controls Venezuela's legislature, said the signatures --
collected in "record time" -- will be delivered to the electoral board
on Tuesday.
However board official Tania D'amelio suggested on
Twitter that the board might not start verifying the signatures until
late May.
- More sleep, save energy -
Venezuelans lost half
an hour of sleep Sunday as their clocks were set forward on the
president's orders in a move to save power.
At 2:30am local time Sunday, Venezuela shifted its time ahead by 30 minutes -- to four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.
The
move, announced in mid-April, is part of a package of measures the
embattled socialist president is pursuing to cope with a crippling
electricity shortage.
Hugo Chavez implemented the unusual
half-hour time shift back in December 2007, saying he didn't want
children to have to walk to school in the dark. Chavez died in 2013.
In
announcing the time change, the Maduro government said 30 extra minutes
of daylight at the end of the day would curb the use of lights and air
conditioning, especially draining for the power grid.
Maduro's
government has also instituted four-hour daily blackouts across most of
the country, reduced the public-sector workweek to two days and ordered
schools closed on Fridays -- adding to the woes of a nation already
stuck in a crushing recession.
The power cuts sparked riots and looting this week in Venezuela's second-largest city, Maracaibo.
Maduro
blames the power crunch on the El Nino weather phenomenon, which has
unleashed the worst drought in 40 years, reducing the reservoirs at
Venezuela's hydroelectric dams.
But the opposition says mismanagement is to blame for the power crisis as well as the recession and shortages.
by Maria Isabel Sanchez
© 2016 AFP
No comments:
Post a Comment