Venezuela was to launch Friday what it called its biggest-ever military exercises as unpopular President Nicolas Maduro sought to display his grip on power amid an economic meltdown and a push to vote him out of office. The two days of drills were aimed at showing readiness to confront any internal or foreign threat. They were especially a warning to the United States, which last year designated Venezuela a danger to its national security, and which Maduro blames for most of the ills he is facing.
The president this week imposed a 60-day state of emergency giving extra powers to police and soldiers. But for many Venezuelans, whose daily life now involves waiting in hours to buy scarce food and basic goods, the maneuvers and state of emergency were irrelevant.
"I'm not reading up on that. It doesn't matter to me," said Michael Leal, a 34-year-old store manager in Chacao, a middle-class Caracas neighborhood dotted with shuttered shopfronts and near-empty restaurants. Venezuela's parlous economy - decimated by recession brought on by low oil prices and hyperinflation, and made worse by severe electricity rationing - were all the fault of the government, not external forces, he said. "We can't breathe," Leal told AFP. He and many others have signed a petition demanding a recall referendum to oust Maduro, heir to the late Hugo Chavez's "socialist revolution."
The opposition says 1.8 million signatures were collected, nine times more than needed to trigger the vote. But it accuses electoral authorities of stalling in validating the petition. Protest marches were held Wednesday across the country to press for the vote, but the one in Caracas was blocked by police firing tear gas. Maduro says the petition is filled with fraudulent signatures, and alleges the referendum is part of a conspiracy.
"This referendum aims to generate conditions to stir the streets and justify a coup d'etat or a foreign intervention," he told supporters on Thursday. Yet 70 percent of fed-up Venezuelans want a change of government, according to recent polls. "We need the opportunity of a new government," said Kevin Jaimes, a 21-year-old auto parts salesman lining up with 200 people outside a pharmacy in the hope of purchasing whatever basic hygiene products might have come in that day.