This country will have Christmas in October. People are not happy

Bogota, Colombia: A nationwide blackout. A broken economy. A widely contested presidential election. A populace terrified of its autocratic leader and his increasingly violent security forces.

What’s a president to do?

Declare the early arrival of Christmas, of course.

Facing widespread domestic and international criticism over his claim that he won a July presidential vote, President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela is trying to turn the nation’s attention toward the one thing almost every Venezuelan loves: Christmas.

Christmas is traditionally a huge family event in Venezuela, with celebrations beginning weeks in advance.Credit: AP

The holiday season will begin on October 1 this year, he has announced on his television show, More with Maduro, telling a friendly audience that he was moving up the start of the holiday by way of national decree.

“Smells like Christmas!” he told the crowd, which included his wife and several top officials. They responded with cheers and applause. The season would begin, he said, “with peace, happiness and security”.

This is not the first time that Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, has begun the holiday season so early.

But the announcement, coming amid so much national turmoil, only underscored the widening chasm between the government’s assertion that Venezuela is flourishing and the reality on the ground. A journalist for Univision, Félix de Bedout, called it part of the “dictator’s delirium”.

President Maduro insists he won the July election – but officials have declined to provide a breakdown of the vote. Credit: Getty Images

Inside the country, many people responded with deep sadness – the autocrat co-opting even their favourite holiday – and anger.

‘A mockery’

Marco, 63, a bus driver in the city of Maracaibo, called the announcement a “mockery” of all those suffering under the current government, adding that Christmas in October was “great news” only for the president and “those in the government who have become richer as we have become poorer”.

Anabella, 25, a university student also in Maracaibo, said the country was not in the mood for a “party until dawn”.

“It is in the mood for freedom,” she said. “It is in the mood for democracy, it is in the mood for its vote to be respected.”

With Maduro’s government arresting people over even small indications of dissent, this masthead is publishing just their first names.

Venezuela’s economic, political and human rights conditions have been deteriorating for years.

Venezuelans in Chile protest against Maduro a month after the disputed vote, which the opposition says it won by a landslide.Credit: AP

But the nation’s democracy experienced what appeared to be its final blow on July 28, when millions of Venezuelans cast their ballots for president. By the end of the day, Maduro had claimed victory despite the fact the country’s electoral council refused to release a breakdown of the results.

Since then, the leading opposition candidate, Edmundo González, has presented thousands of receipts from voting machines to the public, showing that he won in a decisive fashion.

Nonpartisan institutions, including the Carter Centre and the United Nations, which sent people to observe the vote, have said it lacked the basic conditions to be considered democratic. Even normally cautious political analysts have labelled Maduro’s move a blatant steal.

But the Venezuelan leader has remained unswayed. Instead, his security forces have rounded up roughly 2000 people, accusing some of terrorism; two dozen Venezuelans have died in protests since the election.

Now, the country’s top prosecutor has issued an arrest warrant for González, accusing him of crimes including usurpation, forgery of a public document, instigation and sabotage related to the election. A nationwide blackout on Friday – the country’s electric grid has been neglected for years – was another blow. The government blamed the opposition for the system’s failure, also accusing it of sabotage without providing any evidence.

With anguished families lining up outside the nation’s detention centres, hoping for word about their loved ones, Maduro announced the start of Christmas.

Some people, of course, have defended him.

“Who can refuse to extend the most beautiful time of the year?” wrote Barry Cartaya, a journalist for a pro-government television channel, on the social media platform X. He called critics “bitter” and full of hate.

Bittersweet holiday

In Venezuela, Christmas is a beloved holiday whose celebration is practically a patriotic duty.

Festivities often begin days or weeks before Christmas Eve, with large groups of families and friends gathering to make hallacas – tamales stuffed with meat, olives and even raisins – and sing folk songs called gaitas.

In recent years, the Christmas season has grown bittersweet: so many Venezuelans have migrated amid the economic and political crisis that parties within the nation are far smaller.

Anabella said Christmas with her grandparents used to involve as many as 45 family members, so many that they had to eat in shifts. Last year just nine people got together, with many relatives now living abroad.

This year, holiday dinners are likely to involve many people connected by video call and tributes to friends and relatives who have disappeared into the prison system or protesters killed for their beliefs.

But Anabella said she was holding out, or at least hoping for, a change of government. That, she said, “is our great Christmas wish”.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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