The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has surprised everyone with his latest decree: the Christmas season in his country will start on October 1.
The authoritarian leader said he was starting Christmas early to show gratitude to the Venezuelan people and celebrate the country’s “good economic prospects.”
In a televised speech, Maduro claimed that the Venezuelan economy was doing well as the year-end approached. “The economy produces goods and services for the supply of 100 percent of the country, and the economy is growing. This is the good news that the country has,” he said.
Many see Maduro’s decree as a way to distract the public from the crisis that has erupted in Venezuela following the contested July 28 elections, which saw him re-elected as president amidst allegations of fraud.
Venezuela will start Christmas season in October in a diversionary maneuver
The president announced his decision to bring forward Christmas during an episode of his television program, “Con Maduro+”. “September is coming […] and it already smells like Christmas,” he said. “And that is why this year, in homage, in gratitude to you, I am going to decree that Christmas will be brought forward to October 1st. Christmas begins on October 1st, for all of us. Christmas has arrived with peace, happiness, and security.”
Maduro’s degree is widely seen as a bid to distract Venezuelans from July’s fraudulent elections and his government’s subsequent violent repression of the opposition. His announcement came shortly after Venezuela’s Attorney General’s Office ordered the arrest of the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. Gonzalez, who claims to be the legitimate winner of the elections, had refused to attend an earlier court summons for fear of being unfairly detained.
While demonstrators continue to protest against his re-election, Maduro is becoming increasingly isolated by the international community, which has widely condemned the elections as fraudulent. Venezuelans continue to suffer from the profound social and economic crisis that has gripped the country since 2010.
This is not the first time that Maduro has changed the date of Christmas in Venezuela. In 2020, he changed Christmas to October 15 to distract Venezuelans from the severity of the problems facing the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, he again announced a change to the holiday celebrations, via a video recorded in his official residence, the Miraflores Palace.
Aid to accompany early Christmas
During his televised announcement, Maduro repeated his claim that the massive power outage in Venezuela last August 30 was caused by opposition sabotage.
He said that despite the blackout, “the people continued working, laboring, and with the support of the working class, in a perfect civic-military-police union, we [the government] guaranteed absolute peace.” He then announced that Christmas would start in October.
It is expected that the Venezuelan government will increase its aid and food distribution to poor neighborhoods in the period leading up to the Christmas holiday. This scheme, which has been implemented in Venezuela for decades, provides basic foodstuffs and Christmas products to millions of Venezuelan families each year.
However, in 2018, this tradition was severely affected by the country’s deep economic crisis. Hyperinflation, food shortages, and the drop in oil revenue, which is the country’s main source of foreign currency, restricted the government’s ability to deliver aid. As a result, fewer people received assistance, the amount of foodstuffs in each package was reduced, and the Christmas bonuses were also cut. This move was met with anger by Venezuelans, with many people taking to the streets to protest.
Credit: Colombia One
