Speaking at a campaign rally in the town of Carora in Lara state, Maduro promise today to build an entirely new economy in the country once he is elected president on May 20.
Maduro promised a crowd of supporters that once elected, he would begin a three-month tour around the country during which he would “put the economy in order”.
Maduro said that he would go on his three-month tour alongside his “street government”, which likely means a set of cabinet ministers and other politicians with him he will appear at rallies and hold meetings. Maduro said:
Once we’re done with the election, I’m going to get out there with the street government with a single task: I’m going to go on campaign–not an election campaign–an economic campaign, because we have to build a new economy. I’m going to put myself at the front of building a new economy starting June first, and I’m going to start in Carora [and then go] around the country to support producers. Let’s work to renovate the Venezuelan economy, for an economic renaissance in Venezuela.
He continued by providing some details on how he expects the tour will have any kind of effect on the Venezuelan economy:
I’m going to spend three months traveling around the country from one corner to the other, bringing resources, materials and support to articulate production [sic], but also distribution, commercialization and the pricing system that is disturbing the country.
Maduro stressed that Venezuela needs “a new order”, and vowed to “not rest” until he has established it. He attempted to motivate the crowd by saying:
If we don’t do it, who will? Donald Trump? Juan Manuel Santos? Search your hearts. If we don’t do it, who will?
Below, an image from the rally in Carora this afternoon:
Colonel: Venezuela Building “Strategic Coffee Reserve”
Colonel Alfredo Mora, the head of the Venezuelan Coffee Corporation, boasted during a television interview on the state-owned VTV network that Venezuela is building a “strategic reserve” of coffee in response to a “war” being waged against the country through the commodity.
During the interview, Mora asserted that coffee production under his watch has increased in Venezuela. When the interviewer challenged Mora by asking about the rising price of coffee, Mora said:
Look, that’s a war that is being fought not only with coffee. [It’s being fought] with sugar, with gasoline…
The Maduro regime maintains that the country’s economic woes are the result of an “economic war” being waged against the country by a shadowy cabal of national of foreign actors. Some of the main perpetrators of the economic war, the regime maintains, include the United States, Spain, Colombia, Venezuelan expatriates around the world and the country’s political opposition.
The term is used often, but the exact mechanism(s) by which the economic war operates have never been fully elaborated.
Mora explained that coffee is expensive in Venezuela and that its price continues to rise because it is being exported in large quantities into Colombia, “because Colombian coffee is not as good as ours”.
Colombia is the third largest coffee producer on the planet, while Venezuela occupies the 26th position on the list of world producers.
Mora went on the explain the work that the Venezuelan Coffee Corporation has been doing under his command, saying:
We have 217 hectares where we’re planting our coffee–the state itself–in order to counteract against the monopoly [of private coffee producers]. We are now going to have a strategic coffee reserve. And the prices, someone has to control them.
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