Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, accused of rigging the recent presidential election, has announced a change to the official calendar, declaring that he will move the country's Christmas celebrations to October, media reported Tuesday.
– It's September and it already smells like Christmas, and that's why this year, in tribute to the brave people, in gratitude to you, I will decree that Christmas be moved to October 1 – he said. Nicolas Maduro in his television program on the Globo Vision channel.
This is not the first time that the Venezuelan dictator has changed the holiday calendar and brought Christmas forward. In recent years, it has become the norm, according to a list compiled by the Argentine daily La Nacion.
For example, in 2020, Maduro ordered Christmas celebrations to be brought forward to October 15, likely to distract residents from their struggles to cope with the pandemic. COVID-19 in the country.
Maduro accused of rigging election results
This time, Maduro announced his decision shortly after his regime issued an arrest warrant for his rival in the July 28 presidential election, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. Prosecutors have charged Gonzalez Urrutia with “grave crimes” related to the election, including fraud, usurpation and sabotage.
After the election, the opposition published the minutes of the electoral commissions, which showed that Gonzalez had won by a large margin. Protests broke out in the country, brutally suppressed by the authorities. At least 27 people died and more than 2,400 were detained.
When the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken commented on the election results, he said: – We have serious concerns that the announced result does not reflect the will or votes of the Venezuelan people.
American sanctions
U.S. authorities this year reimposed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry, saying Maduro had failed to deliver on promises to hold fair elections. EU diplomacy has announced it will not recognize Maduro as a democratically elected president, as have several Latin American countries.
The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed on Monday that American authorities seized a plane used by Maduro in the Dominican RepublicThe purchase of a Dassault Falcon 900EX aircraft for $13 million was found to have violated U.S. sanctions.
Maduro took over the presidency from Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013. He was sworn in for a second term in early 2019 after elections that were also widely seen around the world as fraudulent. Under his rule, the oil-rich Venezuela It fell into a catastrophic economic and social crisis. At least 7.3 million people, or about 20 percent of the population, left it.
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