Caracas Chronicles

As many of you, I watched Nicolás Maduro’s speech last night in awe. Not only was it a rambling, incoherent mess; it also made clear what everyone seems to be catching on to – that Maduro is insane.

For me, the most galling part was when he blamed the opposition for causing the electricity crisis.

Venezuela’s electricity sector is owned by the State – entirely. From generation to distribution, there is not a single part of the business that is in private hands. The entire industry has been heavily imilitarized. But according to Maduro, we are to believe that Venezuela’s frequent ongoing blackouts are the fault of … opposition sabotage.

It only reinforces what many Venezuelan voters are already feeling: this guy is two cards short of a full deck.

It defies reason that Maduro thinks he can get away with this unsubstantiated claim. So far, we are already seeing how employees of the State’s utility reject the accusation.

Politically, this doubling down was the worst possible message. Instead of extending an olive branch, the accusation of sabotage simply doubles down on polarization. There can be no bridge-building with the people responsible for blackouts, right?

Fraud or no fraud, one thing is clear from last night’s results: the more people see of Maduro, the less they like him. He is deflating right before our eyes, and it won’t be long before his popularity is in the 20s.

And when that happens, I’m sure we’ll be blamed for it as well.