ShareCARACAS: Christmas has come early to Venezuela, but the mood is not jolly. The Yuletide streetlights are up in capital Caracas and other cities, and storefronts glitter with decorations after the festive season officially started Tuesday under a decree issued by strongman President Nicolas Maduro. The public spirit, however, does not reflect the glitz in a country rocked by economic and political strife since Maduro’s widely questioned reelection to a third six-year term in a July 28 vote. “Christmas ended a few years ago,” Urimare Capote, a 62-year-old lawyer, told AFP of Maduro’s decree, which many view as a transparent attempt to distract a crisis-weary population.
Thousands had come out to protest Maduro’s claim of election victory, resulting in clashes that killed 27 and saw more than 2,400 arrested. Many others fled the country. And those who remain are not in a celebratory state of mind. “It’s a miserable mockery of the president towards us,” said Eduardo Martinez, a 71-year-old teacher. “We have no money to buy milk, never mind Christmas” paraphernalia.
‘Abandoned’
On Tuesday, dozens of pensioners who say they can barely afford to eat, gathered outside the UN headquarters in Caracas to push for an intervention. The monthly pension in Venezuela has been 130 bolivars since 2002, when it was worth the equivalent of $30. Today it is $3.50. “Who can live on $3.50?” asked Capote, with the cost of a basket of basic food for a family at $539. Socialist Maduro insists the economic crisis that saw Venezuela’s GDP plummet 80 percent in 10 years on his watch was the result of US sanctions. Analysts point to years of economic mismanagement under Maduro and his socialist predecessor Hugo Chavez.
Last month, Maduro made great fanfare of announcing the Christmas season would be brought forward to October 1. And on Monday, he announced it would run until January 15. The practical implications are unclear, apart from public money being spent on adorning city streets, building facades and public squares. Shops in twinkling malls in Caracas are already selling ornaments, trees and lights — some mixed up with supplies for Halloween celebrations at the end of October. An artificial Christmas tree costs anything from $100 amid sky-high inflation — a price few can afford.
Deilyn Pena takes photos of her five-year-old son on a square adorned with two giant bears, one wearing a Christmas cap and the other a red top hat. “I don’t agree completely” with what’s going on, but “we must have Christmas spirit, especially for the children,” she said. For her part, 22-year-old gym instructor Valeria Ponce said she felt the early Christmas was “a way to distract us from what’s going on.” Like others approached by AFP, she does not refer directly to the political situation amid widespread fear of landing up in jail for saying anything that might upset the Maduro regime.
Dozens of opposition members have been rounded up since the contested vote. Capote said retirees like himself have been “abandoned, not only by the state, but by their families who had to leave Venezuela.” Nearly eight million have left in recent years, many to neighboring Colombia and other countries in Latin America, and some to the United States. “Family is meant to be united for Christmas, but the Venezuelan family is totally broken up,” Capote lamented.
Retiree Arturo Morgado, 68, said “there cannot be a dignified Christmas without a dignified pension.” “Last year I didn’t celebrate, and this year things are even worse.” The United States, EU and several Latin American countries support opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia’s claim to victory in the July election. Gonzalez Urrutia has since taken up asylum in Spain. — AFP
