Christmas Starts In October, Declares Venezuela's Maduro As Crackdown Continues

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The world’s attention on Venezuela has been focused in the last weeks on the fallout from a highly contested presidential election that both the ruling party and its opponents claim to have won, the ensuing persecution of critics and the arrest warrant against the former opposition presidential candidate.

But as political tensions escalate, President Nicolás Maduro decided there was a more important matter to discuss: Christmas and the need to kick off the jolly season a tad early this year. In October, to be precise.

“It’s September, and it already smells like Christmas,” Maduro said Monday night during his weekly television show. “That’s why this year, as a way of paying tribute to you all, and in gratitude to you all, I’m going to decree an early Christmas for October 1.”

But not everyone seems eager to start singing Christmas carols.

“Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy, family reunions, parties, presents,” José Ernesto Ruiz, a 57-year-old office worker, said Tuesday in Caracas, the capital. ”(But) without money and with this political crisis, who can believe that there will be an early Christmas?”

This is not the first time that Maduro, in power since 2013, has declared the early arrival of Christmas. He did so during the COVID-19 pandemic, but never this early. Also, this year the political mood is particularly tense, even if Maduro said the season will come “with peace, happiness and security.”

Ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner of the July 28 election without showing any detailed results to back up their claim as they did in previous presidential elections.

But the lack of transparency has drawn international condemnation against Maduro and his