Maduro And Guaidó Play Blame Game As Venezuelans Lose Electricity
Widespread power failure continues to make the lives of Venezuelans miserable. Blackouts which started on Thursday afternoon severely disrupted normal operations of businesses, government offices, schools and hospitals.
The blackout further intensified the political turmoil in the country with President Nicolas Maduro and interim President Juan Guaidó taking the blame game to another level.
Maduro pointed to the opposition as the ones behind the sabotage of the national grid. He accused opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaidó of trying to mount a coup with the help of “US imperialists”.
In response, Guaidó said on Twitter that the blackout was a matter of “chaos, concern and anger” and “evidence of the usurper’s inefficiency”, adding that “light would return” once Maduro was removed from power.
On Monday, Maduro announced on television that the recovery from power outages will be “little by little,” adding the outage was an “electronic coup” carried out by “criminal minds.”
“It isn’t easy,” he said, congratulating the people of Venezuela, and added the country will “recover slowly.” He admitted large parts of the country “aren’t stabilized” and warned “more attacks” could be on the way.
“We are on the right side of history,” he said. “We are on the way to a great victory from the greatest blow ever delivered to Venezuela.”
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez told reporters that the military has been deployed to protect Venezuela’s power installations from alleged saboteurs.
“We know who’s behind all this,” Padrino Lopez said, reiterating the government’s suspicion that the U.S. staged
Guaidó told CNN that the US cyberattack allegations made by Maduro’s administration were absurd:
“Venezuela’s main power plant is full of aging, analog machinery not connected to any network.
“We are in the middle of a catastrophe that is not the result of a hurricane, that is not the result of a tsunami. It’s the product of the inefficiency, the incapability, the corruption of a regime that doesn’t care about the lives of Venezuelans.”
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