Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he has proof that Monday's mass power outage was the work of sabotage by right wing opposition. When Maduro appeared on state TV to address the issue he held up a photograph of what appeared to be a cut conductor cable. Maduro believes that the goal of the saboteurs was to disrupt this weekend's upcoming local elections. On Monday Venezuela was hit with its second massive power outage of the year. After 8pm the power went out in Caracas and other cities across Venezuela.
Residents and commuters are used to this type of power outage but Venezuelans were still annoyed by Monday night's shortage. Commuters traveling on the Caracas' metro ground were forced to leave the underground rail system after trains came to a sudden halt. Aneudys Acosta was one such commuter, he spoke with Reuters as he trekked through the rain after abandoning his train. "I feel so frustrated, angry and impotent. I live far away and here I am stuck under the rain. Something's going wrong that they're not sorting out. The government needs a plan B."
While speaking on TV Maduro asked "What motive could there be for leaving the whole country without electricity?" The president then said he had more than the photo as evidence of the sabotage and would reveal it on Wednesday. "We always face these attacks by the right wing fascists... they wanted to make me, as president of the republic, decree a state of emergency and suspend the elections," Maduro said. This is not the first time Maduro accused the opposition of sabotage in order to discredit him.
In September, Maduro accused the right of sabotaging the national grid which caused one of the worst blackouts in the history of the nation. Since 2009, Venezuela has been hit with periodic power shortages. Usually Caracas, which is the country's capital, was spared the worst of the outages. Maduro praised electric workers for restoring power "in record time." Since he became President Maduro has accused the opposition of several criminal acts including trying to have him assassinated and attempting to destroy the economy.
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