Caracas, Jan 15 (EFE).- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday during the presentation of his annual report signed a new “economic emergency” decree to deal with the crisis, the first such decree this year but the sixth extension of the document he first signed a year ago.
“Tomorrow, the first extraordinary emergency decree will be published in the Official Gazette to continue dealing with the crisis, to continue moving forward to overcome it,” said Maduro from the headquarters of the Supreme Court, where he presented his report.
He added, his remarks being obligatorily broadcast on radio and television, that he will give the high court the “first 2017 emergency decree” as “constitutionally appropriate.”
Maduro has regularly renewed the decree he first launched exactly a year ago which allowed him to “weather the storm” in 2016, which he called “tough … difficult,” and the “intensification of the attack on the (country) by the oligarchy.”
“The states of exception and economic emergency … have been an extraordinary instrument to be able to maneuver amid the crisis and to be able to confront the sabotage by the National Assembly,” where the opposition holds sway, he said.
Maduro added that in recent years, and in particular in 2016, an “orchestration of interests” had banded together to “wreck” the Bolivarian Revolution he leads.
He said that forces were operating from “Cucuta (Colombia) and from Miami” to distort the value of the Venezuelan currency, adding that an “international financial fence” has been erected to deny Caracas financial help and cause it to “default.”
Maduro this year presented his annual management report to the high court and not to Parliament, as the Constitution provides, because the legislature has an overwhelming opposition majority that is refusing to obey the decisions of the Supreme Court.