Outages dim Chavez popularity

Power failures, unpaid civil servants and falling oil revenue play havoc with support for the Venezuela leader.

Reporting from El Consejo, Venezuela – Power outages are hitting Henrique Vollmer’s rum distillery several times a week, interrupting production, damaging equipment and jeopardizing the jobs of his 375 workers.

President Hugo Chavez blames the inadequate power production by Venezuela’s hydroelectric plants on low rainfall. But Vollmer says the problem has deeper roots.

“The blackouts have gotten more frequent over the last couple of years,” said Vollmer, whose family-owned Santa Teresa distillery 50 miles southwest of Caracas, the capital, is the nation’s second-largest rum producer. “It’s not just us — glass, paper and oil companies are suffering too.”

Power outages in this sugar-growing region now last from a few minutes to four hours and are just one symptom of deteriorating conditions in an oil-rich but politically unsettled country. Others are regular cutoffs of running water, even in Caracas hospitals. So are double-digit inflation, rising crime and a sinking economy.

LA Times