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Weekly Report - 26 March 2020 (WR-20-12)

VENEZUELA: Divisions over combating coronavirus crisis

Venezuela’s de facto president Nicolás Maduro delivered a national address on 22 March during which he announced, among other things, the suspension of all capital and interest payments for the space of six months in the face of the coronavirus threat. The umbrella business group Fedecámaras urged the state to do more to sustain the national productive sector and tabled a draft plan of its own to this end. It also pleaded for a political truce and the lifting of international sanctions to avert a humanitarian crisis of unmanageable proportions. There is no sign of the country’s irreconcilably opposed political actors being prepared to set aside their differences, and clear evidence of the Maduro government redoubling its crackdown on dissent; there is growing support, however, even among Maduro critics, for sanctions to be lifted.

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