Protests begin in Venezuela over daily power outages

Protests have engulfed Venezuela due to daily power outages.

As Financial Times reports, the protests took place in several states, and on Thursday spread to the capital - Caracas, where power outages are being recorded for the first time since 2019.

Protesters blame the country's interim president Delsy Rodriguez, who took charge of Venezuela after the arrest of Nicolas Maduro by U.S. military forces on January 3. Rodriguez promised to open the energy sector to private investment and carried out reforms to oil and mining legislation to attract capital. However, according to residents, there have been no improvements.

Pensioner Graciela Gonzalez from Aragua state told the publication that she faces outages of four to five hours every day. Caracas resident Olga Herrera reported that the Catia district had no power for 15 hours on Thursday.

Caracas Mayor Carmen Melendez announced a reduction of the working day to half due to the lack of electricity.

Rodriguez links the outages to damage at the TermoCarabobo gas power plant during earthquakes in June, as well as the natural phenomenon El Niño, FT notes. At the same time, residents of the country call these statements false: Margarita Rodriguez from Valencia stated that "we have been living with restrictions of up to six hours a day for many years."

Columbia University energy expert and former Citgo Petroleum chair Luisa Palacios said that restoring the energy sector requires not only repairing capacities but also creating "a reliable regulatory framework with transparent market rules."

The earthquakes that Rodriguez cites to explain the electricity problems occurred at the end of June. At that time, two powerful tremors were recorded off the coast of Venezuela. The magnitude of the first was 7.2, the second - 7.5, and the interval between them did not exceed one minute. In early August, National Assembly Chairman Jorge Rodriguez reported that the death toll had risen to 6,125 people.