CARACAS, Venezuela – President Nicolas Maduro told Venezuela’s newly opposition-led Congress on Friday that “catastrophic” economic numbers justify his decree of emergency powers, and urged them to support the measures his socialist government will impose.
Hours after the Central Bank released data showing an economy in shambles, the embattled leader called for a productive relationship with the newly powerful opposition even as he pledged to block some of their key proposals and blamed “savage capitalism” for the country’s economic woes.
The Central Bank released its first economic data in more than a year, and for the first time acknowledged Friday what analysts have long said: That annualized inflation has surged into triple digits.
Maduro called the numbers “catastrophic,” but devoted most of his state of the nation speech to laying out what he called a “monstrous attack” by business owners and other foes of the leftist government, blaming them for the country’s economic chaos.
The opposition, which swept Dec. 6 legislative election, holds that it’s Maduro’s own policies that have precipitated the crisis.
Bank officials revealed on Friday that Venezuela’s economy contracted by 7.1 percent during the quarter that ended in September 2015, and inflation reached 141.5 percent.
Ahead of his speech, Maduro declared an economic emergency, giving him 60 days to unilaterally enact sweeping reforms. He later hand-delivered the decree to the head of Congress to be debated next week, but it’s not clear that the government will wait for approval to enforce it.
Even as he said the time had come for unity in the name of getting work done and stressed the need to navigate Venezuela’s new “clash of powers,” Maduro warned the opposition that it could easily get overconfident and lose the next elections.
And he said he simply would not permit one of its key initial projects: Giving people who live in government housing the title to their homes. Maduro railed against that proposal as a privatization of social services championed by an opposition that has never cared to build public housing.
“No, no and no, we will not permit it,” he thundered. “You’ll have to get rid of me first.”
Opposition leadership has pledged to do just that, issuing a six-month deadline to replace Maduro.
Maduro also mentioned in passing that his newly appointed Vice President Aristobulo Isturiz had spoken this week with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and high-ranking diplomat Tom Shannon, who has had overseen a brief rapprochement last year after a period of deteriorating relations between the two countries.
The speech was the first time in 17 years a Venezuelan president has had to speak in front of a Congress controlled by the opposition. Critics of the socialist administration took control of the institution last week, and have made a host of changes, including taking down all posters of Chavez and allowing independent media into the chamber.
The state television feed cut off most opposition reaction, even zooming in to avoid showing the opposition congressional leader who sat directly behind Maduro.
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves, has suffered enormously as the price of oil has crashed from above $90 a barrel two years ago to just $24 today. Analysts say that means Venezuela is getting dangerously close to just breaking even on the oil it produces, which accounts for 95 percent of export earnings.
Maduro echoed many Venezuelans’ fears Friday when he said he hoped the coming year would see peace, “not senseless violence that could lead anywhere.”
