Is the widespread power outage “sabotage” by the opposition as Maduro claims?

Protests, mass arrests, one month after the contested re-election of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela continues to plunge into chaos. After a general power outage on Friday morning, the government denounced an “attempted coup d’état”.

In Venezuela, in a country in chaos since the contested re-election of Nicolas Maduro at the end of July 2024, residents found themselves paralyzed by a widespread power outage on Friday, August 30, late in the morning. As early as 5 a.m., the capital, Caracas, was affected, as were all 24 states in the country, which reported a total or partial loss of electricity supply. The government denounces a “sabotage”even speaking of “attempted coup d’état”.

This blackout episode painfully recalls an episode that occurred in 2019, a few months after the presidential election where Maduro’s victory had already been contested, the country experienced a general power outage for five days.

In a television interview, the Minister of the Interior mentioned a “terrorist attack” and points to a classic strategy of the opposition, whose main leaders have been living in hiding since the results of the presidential election of July 28, results confirmed by the Supreme Court last week, while the National Electoral Council has not disclosed the minutes of the polling stations.

Since then, the government has increased the pressure and repression. In one month, it has already caused 27 deaths and nearly 200 injuries, with more than 2,400 people arrested. This week again, a famous lawyer, close to the opposition led by Maria Corina Machado, was imprisoned and all critical voices are silenced.

Diosdado Caballo, a well-known figure of the regime and appointed Minister of the Interior and Justice two days ago, is a perfect symbol of this drift. A comrade-in-arms of Hugo Chavez, he is a sulphurous character who regularly makes threatening remarks about opponents of the regime. He does so every Wednesday on his television and radio show “Con el Mazo Dando” (“With a big sledgehammer”) where he deploys his banter every week to pay tribute to the professionalism of the security forces and regularly spread his threats. An Amnesty International report in 2022 had also pointed out a link between the stigmatization he carries out live and the arrests that generally follow a few days or weeks later.

Despite this harsh repression, the opposition refuses to give in. At a fourth march on Wednesday, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who is now living in hiding, was present, proclaiming: “don’t be afraid” and swearing to his followers that they will “make Maduro give in”. But this Friday, August 30, it was the opposition presidential candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who was summoned again by the prosecutor’s office. The authorities threatened to issue an arrest warrant against him if he did not appear for this third summons, even though he has not appeared in public since July 30.

The candidate is already facing nearly a dozen misdemeanor charges from the prosecutor’s office and has been regularly attacked or insulted by Maduro. Meanwhile, people continue to flee the country. More than 7.5 million Venezuelans have fled to neighboring states since 2015, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency, or more than 20 percent of the population.