Venezuela’s acting president has accused political opponents of drawing up plans to sabotage the Latin American country’s electricity grid and disrupt food distribution ahead of the April 14 presidential election.
Nicolas Maduro made the remarks during a televised speech on Monday, The Associated Press reported. He did not provide further details about the alleged plots.
The comments came amid mounting concerns over occasional shortages of some basic commodities and sporadic power outages in several regions of Venezuela.
Opposition figures blame the government for the shortages, and maintain that it has not earmarked enough capital for the import of necessary food from abroad.
They also argue that the government should be held accountable for the blackouts because it has not made investments required to maintain Venezuela’s power grid.
Speaking in an interview with the private television network Televen on March 17, Maduro said the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have formulated a plot to murder opposition leader Henrique Capriles in order to destabilize Venezuela.
He stated that former Bush administration officials Roger Noriega and Otto Reich, as well as the Pentagon and the CIA, are behind the plot, Reuters reported.
Maduro said the plan was to blame the murder on the Venezuelan government and to “fill Venezuelans with hate.”
Maduro, 50, became Venezuela’s acting president on March 8, following the death of socialist leader Hugo Chavez, who lost a two-year battle with cancer on March 5.
The original article can be found on the PressTV website, here.
