A blackout put most of Venezuela into darkness early Friday morning, according to Communications Minister Freddy Nanez, who blamed the tragedy on “sabotage” to the national system.
Venezuela endures frequent blackouts, which President Nicolas Maduro’s regime routinely blames on baseless attempts to destabilize him.
“We are reporting that at approximately 4:40 am (0840 GMT) today, Friday, August 30, an electrical sabotage took place in Venezuela, a sabotage against the national electrical system, which has affected almost the entire national territory,” Nanez told the state-run VTV channel.
“All 24 states are reporting total or partial loss of electricity supply,” he said.
The worst countrywide outage to strike Venezuela, in March 2019, lasted several days.
Western regions such as Tachira and Zulia, once capitals of the oil industry, experience daily power outages.
Maduro’s government has accused the United States and the political opposition of orchestrating the power failures.
Opposition leaders and experts, however, blame corruption and a lack of investment and expertise for the outages.
“It is a new electrical sabotage,” said Nanez. “We know what it cost us in 2019, we know what it has cost us to recover the national electric system since then and today we are facing it with the proper protocols.”
Opposition leader summoned
Nanez stated that the administration implemented “anti-coup protocols” following the blackout, citing the recent July 28 election, the outcome of which has been widely questioned.
Maduro was declared the winner of the elections, but the government-aligned National Electoral Council (CNE) refused to reveal specific data to verify the outcome.
The opposition claims its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, won the election by a landslide, and has released polling station-level data to back up that assertion.
Gonzalez Urrutia was scheduled to appear before prosecutors on Friday, his third summons after missing the previous two.
Authorities have said that failure to appear will result in the issue of an arrest warrant.
It was unclear whether the proceedings would continue following the outage.
Gonzalez Urrutia faces accusations of “usurpation of functions” and “forgery” for the opposition’s publication of electoral results data.
The opposition candidate has not announced whether he will appear, but has accused Attorney General Tarek William Saab of pursuing politically motivated allegations and failing to provide “guarantees of independence and due process.”
Maduro has previously threatened to imprison Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, accusing them of being involved in post-election protests and violence.
Since the election, protest-related violence has killed at least 27 people, including two military members, injured almost 200, and resulted in 2,400 arrests.