Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that Christmas in that country will start three months earlier – already on the first of October. Venezuelans have been on the streets since July, when Maduro was elected president for the third time despite doubts about the validity of the results. While arresting thousands of opponents and protesters, Maduro is also thinking about the holidays.
“It’s only September, and it already smells like Christmas. That’s why this year, in gratitude to all of you, I’m declaring an early Christmas on October 1,” said the 61-year-old politician, a former bus driver, on his weekly TV show. The Venezuelan Episcopal Conference criticized the announcement on Tuesday, warning that the holiday “must not be used for political and propaganda purposes” reports Sky News.
Office worker Jose Ernesto Ruiz (57) is not enthusiastic about the president’s decision.
“Christmas should be a time of joy, family, unity and gifts, but how can we believe in an early Christmas without money and in the midst of political crises” he asked himself.
39-year-old Inés Quevedo, a secretary and mother of two, thinks the same way. She is not convinced that there will be an increase in wages, nor that the government will pay the “aguinaldo”, the traditional Christmas bonus paid to workers at the end of the year.
“We are all worried about how we will put food on the table, pay for the bus and send the children to school,” she added.
The minimum wage in Venezuela has not changed since 2022 and is 130 bolivars, i.e. 3.2 euros. monthly. President Maduro has already tried to cheer up residents by declaring an early Christmas during the Covid pandemic, but never this early in the year. Despite the tense mood in the country, he claims that the holidays will bring “peace, happiness and security.” Just hours before the president’s announcement, an arrest warrant was issued Edmund GonzalezMaduro’s main political opponent, whose party, unlike the president’s, published evidence that it had garnered the largest number of votes after the elections in May.
Source: bizlife.rs
