Venezuela Opposition Kicks Off Petition Drive to Oust President Maduro - A Discussion of Socialism

[Dashinka 25,920]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuela-opposition-kicks-off-petition-drive-to-oust-president-maduro-1461783387

By

Anatoly Kumarev and

Mayela Armas

Updated April 27, 2016 7:28 p.m. ET

28 COMMENTS

MARACAIBO, Venezuela—Thousands of people lined up across this sweltering city Wednesday to sign petitions in favor of recalling socialist President Nicolás Maduro, hours after residents angry over the country’s degrading conditions looted 73 businesses and left the city’s streets filled with broken glass and charred tires.

The signature drive to trigger a recall referendum against Mr. Maduro comes as increasingly desperate citizens, living for days with prolonged power and water cuts as well as food shortages, have taken to the streets in raucous protests in at least eight cities.

In Maracaibo, the country’s second-largest city and center for oil production, vehicles were set ablaze and tons of food was stolen in an expression of public fury that lasted until 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.

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Hours later, Antonio Gómez, a 45-year-old bus driver, joined hundreds of Maracaibo residents lining up to sign the petition against Mr. Maduro, just blocks away from a burned delivery truck and a boarded-up shop.

“This [petition] is our last chance of getting out of this democratically,” Mr. Gomez said. “We are reaching desperation.”

Mr. Maduro, elected in 2013 to succeed the late firebrand Hugo Chávez, has seen his popularity plummet amid the worst economic crisis in Venezuelan history. The country of 30 million has the world’s highest inflation, at triple-digits, and the International Monetary Fund forecasts the economy will contract 8% this year. A lack of money to pay for imports has created shortages of food and lifesaving medicines.

Yet while a recent Venebarometro poll showed some 60% of people said they favored Mr. Maduro’s resignation, it won’t be easy to force him from office via the recall procedure laid out in the constitution.

His adversaries first need to collect nearly 200,000 signatures, representing 1% of the nation’s more than 19 million voters. The National Electoral Council, which is closely allied with the government, has 20 days to authenticate them. If that drive is successful, the opposition must then collect nearly four million signatures over three days before the end of the year to trigger an actual recall vote. To win that new election, they would have to garner more votes than the 7.5 million Mr. Maduro got in the 2013 election.

The IMF’s Western Hemisphere director, Alejandro Werner, said Venezuela’s economy is unsustainable in the medium term. “It is clearly a situation in which the effects on the quality of life and health of the population are beginning to be very significant,” he said on Wednesday in Mexico City. The IMF says Venezuela’s revenues dropped from $80 billion in 2013 to between $20 billion to $25 billion in 2015.

Adding to those woes, over the past month the country has been suffering from programmed blackouts that last four hours—or even longer in some communities—amid a severe drought that has helped cripple the national hydroelectric power-generating system.

Public frustration worsened Tuesday when the government shortened the workweek for state employees to just two days a week to save on electrical consumption, meaning public services would be curtailed further. In Maracaibo, anger exploded into the streets in the evening when the lights went out a second time after a previous four-hour outage, prompting some to stone government-run buses and public offices.

“People protest because they don’t have anything to eat,” said Maracaibo resident Ana Vargas, standing in front of the wrecked and looted Dorsay clothing store here. “This is what I want to tell President Maduro.”

The looting and riots resulted in 121 arrest in Maracaibo and surrounding towns, said Gen. Néstor Reverol, head of the National Guard.

Mr. Maduro claimed the opposition was behind the looting.

“Those who are captured in the events in Maracaibo are already talking about who paid them,” he said. “I call on the people to repudiate the violent ones and that the violent ones go to jail.”

He also belittled the recall effort and insisted he would remain in office.

​“Nothing that they’re doing is going to be politically viable,” he said. “The revolution will continue and will have this president until 2018.”

Opposition leaders like Elías Matta, a lawmaker from Zulia state, where Maracaibo is located, said while violence wasn’t a solution, the government is failing to interpret what is driving it.

“The people are tired of the severe rationing of water and light, and also that their wages aren’t enough,” he said. “It’s sad that the government doesn’t see what’s happening.”

On Wednesday afternoon in Maracaibo, soldiers in riot gear were on guard outside subway stations and at major intersections as some people expressed hope that signing a petition for a recall would in time help alleviate suffering. Office workers in ties lined up to sign alongside uniformed clerks, house cleaners and manual laborers, everyone drenched with sweat in the 95-degree heat that has made living through blackouts, which leave air conditioners sputtering, an ordeal.

“I have 800 reasons to sign and recall Maduro,” said María Ferrer, a 40-year-old librarian. “We want liberty, because we are prisoners here in Venezuela.”

Support for the petition appeared strong elsewhere in the country, too.

“I’m signing because I have to wait in line from 4 a.m. to 5 p.m. just to be able to get a kilogram of corn flour and some tomato sauce,” said Leticia Cortina, 32-year-old house cleaner in Caracas, where offices and shops were closed and large teams of police deployed.

“In Venezuela, the constitution permits the citizens to re-evaluate the president’s term in a pacific way,” said Tarek William Saab, the government’s human-rights ombudsman. “Burning and looting isn’t the way.”

The administration has blamed the electrical shortages and rationing on a drought that lowered water levels in the reservoir that powers the turbines at El Guri, a massive dam that provides two-thirds of the country’s energy needs.

Critics, including opposition politicians in congress and energy consultants, blame corruption and a lack of government investment. Government officials have repeatedly declined to comment on those allegations.

The energy cuts have already prompted shopping malls, which house health clinics and banks along with retailers, to close early. Most factories and businesses have sharply cut hours.

“I’m an industrial engineer and this country industry has come to a halt,” said Wilber Mejias, from Guarenas, a city outside of Caracas, who was signing the petition Wednesday. “If Maduro stays, there’s no way out of this crisis.”

—Sheyla Urdaneta
and Sara Schaefer Muñoz contributed to this article.

[Jacque67 7,328]

Interesting read....I wasn't aware of the programmed blackouts...wow.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Venezuelan Socialism Still a Complete Disaster

http://reason.com/blog/2016/01/29/venezuelan-socialism-still-a-complete-di

[smilesammich 10,727]

yeah, cause hillary is a socialist hillary is queen kapital, you guys hate her but can't figure out the reasons why.

[TBoneTX 47,589]

Rafael Correa, Ecuador's president/quasi-dictator, idealized Hugo Chavez and would probably wreck the country (actually, he IS wrecking it) to stay in power.

[Boiler 47,539]

I would have thought Government Employees only working 2 days a week but being paid for 5 could go down well here.

[Dashinka 25,920]

yeah, cause hillary is a socialist hillary is queen kapital, you guys hate her but can't figure out the reasons why.

For me it has a lot to do with her untrustworthiness, but I wouldn't say I hate her, I just wouldn't vote for her.

[smilesammich 10,727]

For me it has a lot to do with her untrustworthiness, but I wouldn't say I hate her, I just wouldn't vote for her.

you're a better man than me, i hate her. and i also wouldn't vote for her. <--this might me a bit irrational of me but she's freaked me out since i was a kid, so it has nothing much to do with her bids of potus.