On Friday morning, 80% of Venezuela was plunged into darkness, including the Caracas metropolitan area, following a massive power outage that Nicolas Maduro's government attributed to “sabotage of the national electrical system.” The grid's downfall comes at a time of maximum political tension and in a climate of persecution of opposition leaders who claim victory for the Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia during the elections of July 28. The candidate did not appear at the third summons of the prosecutor's office, which is investigating him for conspiracy, among other crimes, so it is only a matter of procedures for the justice system to issue an arrest warrant. Maduro spoke of a “criminal attack.” “I have said it and I repeat it: Calm and sane, nerves of steel! Desperate fascism attacks the people,” he wrote in a Telegram message.
This is not the first time that Venezuela has suffered a blackout of this nature, which the opposition attributes to a lack of investment in infrastructure and corruption. In March 2019, in the midst of the conflict between Maduro and the opposition Juan Guaidó, The last particularly serious case was recorded, which was recalled by the Minister of Communication, Freddy Náñez. “We lived it in 2019, we know what it cost us, we know what it has cost us since then to recover the national electrical system and today we face it with the anti-coup protocols, because that is what has existed in Venezuela since before July 28 [día de las elecciones]during July 28 and these little more than 30 days that have passed,” he said.
Hair Goddess, one of the main leaders of Chavismo and recently appointed Minister of the Interior and Justice, assured that the government would do “justice” and gave some details about the fall of the system. He said that the Executive already had information about alleged “attacks” and that “little by little”, without giving an approximate time frame for their resolution, the system would be reactivated. At noon, the failure had not yet been resolved.
The outage occurred despite the so-called “special plan for 24-hour patrol and surveillance” of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) in “all electrical installations” launched in late June on orders from Maduro, who later denounced that “far-right groups” were preparing an “electric war” to “harm” the country. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López activated the so-called “Centella Plan,” which essentially consists of a deployment of public transportation so that citizens can get to their workplaces. “We have put into practice the Centella Plan, it is a plan that we must cover any situation at the national level. In this case of transport and patrol, we have eliminated all motorized units, trucks, tactical and non-tactical vehicles, civilians, to support the people in their movement,” the Chvavista leader told state channel VTV.
Large territories and several cities in Venezuela suffer frequent power outages that, in some cases, last up to a week before being corrected, according to regular users in different regions of the interior and popular neighborhoods of Caracas. The Government, however, continues to insist on the theory of an attempted “coup d'état.”
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