Venezuela starts rolling blackouts, Chavez says cutbacks needed to face energy crunch

Venezuela begins rolling blackouts nationwide

CARACAS, Venezuela — Rolling blackouts of up to four hours a day began in the capital and other parts of the country on Wednesday, as President Hugo Chavez urged Venezuelans to accept the cutbacks and likened them to a national energy diet.

The government says rationing is necessary to prevent a widespread power collapse if the water levels behind Guri Dam — which supplies most of Venezuela’s electricity — fall to critical lows in the coming months due to a severe drought. Officials also acknowledge that some gas- and oil-fueled thermoelectric plants are producing below capacity while undergoing repairs.

Some Caracas residents grumbled about morning power outages.

“This is the worst,” said Johana Machado, a 30-year-old cashier at a bakery-delicatessen. With no electricity to power the coffee maker or the scale used to weigh cold cuts, Machado said sales were suffering.

Critics blame Chavez’s government for the shortage, saying it has failed to complete enough power upgrades to keep up with increasing demand.

Chavez denied that, saying the drought is the primary cause of the problem and rationing is necessary to extend the dam’s capacity to feed the electrical grid. Rains are expected to return at the end of the traditional dry season in May.

“It’s like a diet, like when someone is very fat,” Chavez said.

The rationing and a steep currency devaluation announced last week carry political risks for Chavez if some of his supporters grow disillusioned.

Chavez, who remains the country’s most popular politician, vowed in a televised speech to show his opponents he still has the edge. He dared opponents to gather signatures for a recall referendum similar to the one he survived in 2004.

“Aren’t you saying that Chavez is finished? That nobody likes me? Well, show it,” Chavez said.

Opposition leaders announced plans for a protest march later this month against the blackouts and 25-percent inflation, which is now expected to go higher due to the devaluation.

El Nacional newspaper, which is strongly critical of Chavez, ran a front-page headline Wednesday likening the blackouts to Cuba’s “special period” — a reference to food, fuel and power scarcities after the collapse of the Soviet Union brought the island’s economy to its knees.

Some business leaders also expressed concern. Noel Alvarez, president of the country’s largest business chamber, said the outages will worsen the recession. Venezuela’s economy declined 2.9 percent last year, in part due to lower prices for the country’s oil and reduced oil output.

As the outages began in Caracas, some parts of the capital lost power from midnight to 4 a.m., and others from 8 a.m. to noon. Other parts of the city will have afternoon outages.

Venezuela’s professional baseball league said night games would begin an hour earlier to help fans arrive home in time before midnight outages. The government has said it won’t cut power to sports stadiums, the subway or hospitals.

The government also recently reduced the hours of electricity supply for shopping centers and required businesses and large residential complexes to cut energy use by 20 percent or face fines.

Chavez has reduced the workday of many public employees, setting new hours from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.