Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro accused opposition leader Juan Guaido of intentionally sabotaging the nation with nationwide electric outages with “U.S. technology.”
Tarek Saab, the attorney general of Venezuela and a top confidant of Maduro, asked the Supreme Court, which is packed with Maduro allies, to launch in an investigation into Guaido.
Maduro issued a nationally televised statement warning his regime will begin to crack down on individuals opposing his mandate. He said “the hour of justice has come” and the “justice [system] will go after the person behind this criminal attack against the Venezuelan electricity system.”
The regime maintains that Guaido, whom the U.S. and allies have deemed the interim president of the South American country, and his inner circle, with the help of American technology, are deliberately shutting off the nation’s electricity in an attempt to undermine the regime’s hold on power.
Guaido and the U.S. insist the outages throughout Venezuela comprise an example of the regime’s inability to govern.
The National Assembly, the democratically elected legislative body headed by Guaido, announced Tuesday it will move forward with privatizing Venezuela’s oil industry, reversing a key flank of Hugo Chavez’s “political revolution” when he nationalized the industry. Experts have long viewed the nationalized oil industry as the Maduro regime’s lifeline, serving as the only consistent flow of cash in one of the world’s most depressed economies.
