Venezuelan President | The 'right wing' doesn't have to sabotage the country. Maduro and his pals are doing quite well in that... |
In an address on national television, Mr Maduro briefly showed images of what appeared to be a cut conductor cable lying on the grass - though it was unclear where the photos were taken.
"What motive could there be for leaving a whole country without electricity?" he said.
| Criminal negligence? |
"We always face these attacks by the Right-wing fascists ... they wanted to make me, as president of the republic, decree a state of emergency and suspend the elections."
Despite sitting on the world's largest oil reserves, Venezuela suffers frequent blackouts, a problem opponents blame on poor maintenance and government mismanagement of infrastructure and the economy during 15 years of socialist "revolution". Mr Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, have often blamed opposition sabotage for the difficulty keeping the lights on in the deeply polarized country.
| In keeping with the communist playbook... |
In an effort to combat the situation, Mr Maduro has sent soldiers into electrical goods stores to force price cuts, ordered caps on profits as well as new measures to combat the black market in dollars and announced an early handout of public sector Christmas bonuses.
On Monday, as the power cut struck, he was announcing new restrictions on the anachronistically high prices of second hand cars - another attempt to rein in rampant inflation in a country where restrictions on imports and the dollars needed to pay for them have led to used vehicles commanding higher prices than new ones.
But it is unclear whether such moves will be enough to stem the predicted losses for the government on Sunday. Mr Maduro won the race to succeed Mr Chavez following his death from cancer by just two percent in April.