Venezuela president gets rare blast of live TV criticism

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro delivers his annual state of…

Reeling under the impact of rapidly plummeting global oil prices, the Venezuelan government on Friday declared a 60-day nationwide economic emergency.

Opposition leaders stepped back from the brink of a showdown between branches of power on Wednesday when they agreed to unseat three contested lawmakers.

The opposition accuses President Nicolas Maduro of using the Supreme Court to block its rivals’ two-thirds majority which could enable them to launch constitutional steps to drive him from office.

Venezuela’s socialist government decreed an “economic emergency” on Friday and published the first data in a year showing the depth of a recession fueled by low oil prices and a sputtering state-led model.

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. On Monday, January 11, the Supreme Court thus declared that the National Assembly president had acted in defiance of the Court and that from now on all laws that the National Assembly passes are null and void, since the assembly had incorporated members into its body that should not be there. The body’s newly elected president, Henry Ramos, backed down from his initial rejection of the order in an apparent attempt to gain control of the situation.

A 12-page report posted on the central bank’s website Friday explained the urgency in taking economic measures.

Critics of the administration took control of the institution last week for the first time in 17 years.

Maduro secured a Supreme Court injunction limiting the opposition’s legislative powers to cut short his mandate. Ramos, 72, said at one point, sticking his tongue out at jeering legislators, during the rare opposition speech broadcast on state television.

The opposition has pledged to do just that, issuing a six-month deadline to hold a recall election.

In his statement, Mr. Salas echoed Mr. Maduro’s claims that Venezuela’s problems were caused by an “economic war” being waged by the government’s enemies. “You’ll have to get rid of me first”.

The opposition has vowed to rescue Venezuela from an economic crisis that has sparked soaring inflation and shortages of goods – Ramos says the economic policies inspired by Chavez have “failed”.

Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves but the big slump in oil prices in the past 18 months has axed its revenues by 60%.

Inflation is said by Congress to be running at 140% a year.

Maduro recently named a new cabinet, reshuffling many positions, but in the key position of vice president for the economic area, Luis Salas, Maduro appointed someone considered to be a proponent of the same policies as before, who says that price controls and the currency control must be maintained and that the government’s main weakness has been in the area of enforcement of existing policies. As revenue from oil exports, which account for 95 percent of the South American nation’s revenue, drops, the local currency, the bolivar, has also plummeted in the black market.