Caruzo – Socialists Host Massive Music Festival While Venezuela Struggles with Constant Blackouts

DracuFest 2022 in Puerto Cabello, in the state of Carababo, Venezuela. Video from Twitter
Screenshot of Gov. Rafael Lacava Twitter Video
Christian K. Caruzo

Caracas – The socialist regime of Venezuela held a free music and sports festival called “DracuFest” between April 12-16 in the city of Puerto Cabello, Carabobo, inviting foreign and local musicians to perform.

While the event serves to further the regime’s narrative presenting Venezuela as a normal and functioning country, the reality is that its public infrastructure continues to further collapse, especially its power grid – making “DracuFest” an inexcusable waste of public resources.

“DracuFest” was hosted by Rafael Lacava, governor of the state of Carabobo. Lacava, sanctioned by the United States in 2019 and maintaining very close ties to socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, was recently portrayed by the New York Times as a “cosmopolitan” technocrat. Lacava has co-opted the imagery of a “Dracula bat” and turned it into his own personal branding, with examples such as renaming a plaza to “Plaza Dracula,” or the “TransDracula,” a series of transportation buses allegedly acquired through a 2018 auction in the United States.

In contrast to the “bread and circus,” the state of Carabobo continues to face the consequences of its crumbling public infrastructure and lack of investment on behalf of the socialist government. The city of Valencia, the capital of the state of Carabobo, suffered several blackouts on April 16 while the festival rolled on. It is common for Valencia to undergo blackouts almost on a daily basis and its citizens have to deal with falling power posts and exploding power transformers that pose a huge risk to their safety.

The experience of suffering through endless blackouts continues to echo all throughout the country, where 194,656 power failures and 12 nationwide blackouts occurred in 2021 alone.

Citizens in the state of Mérida recently protested that they had only received a total of four hours of electricity in the span of two days. On Easter Sunday, mere hours after “DracuFest” concluded, ten out of the 23 states in the country suffered a blackout. The only place that is partially exempt is Venezuela’s capital, Caracas — but being the seat of power of the Bolivarian Revolution no longer shields Caracas from the ongoing collapse. Blackouts and power fluctuations have become more commonplace.

The explosion of a power substation in the Petare district of Caracas has left the area more than 30 hours without power as of publishing time.

Critics of the DracuFest denounced the event as a “circus without bread” and not a priority for the country while urging the government to focus on Carabobo’s critical problems, such as its failing power grid. It is unclear how much money was spent on organizing the event.

“The DracuFest swallowed all of the power. This is extraordinary,” read a tweet with the hashtag #SinLuz, a hashtag used by Venezuelans often on a daily basis to announce and vent about the endless blackouts that occur in the country.

“Sectors of Valencia with hours #SinLuz, there is no dracufest that can rehabilitate the Electrical System,” read another tweet.

Lacava responded to the criticism by cataloging his critics as “pavosos,” a colloquial term in Venezuela to describe people who bring bad luck or are unlucky.

 

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The socialist regime of Venezuela often portrays the blackouts as “attacks” to Venezuela’s power grid allegedly orchestrated by either the United States of America, Colombia, or the Venezuelan opposition — despite the fact that there is a constant presence of members of the Bolivarian National Guard in each and every power station in Venezuela.

The constant blackouts have damaged untold appliances in a country where the sheer majority cannot afford to repair or replace them. Venezuela’s electrical service law stipulates that the state is responsible for any damages caused — but because, in their own narrative, these blackouts are the result of foreign attacks, they are not liable nor responsible for any damages caused. That was the response given to the committee of those affected by the blackouts in Venezuela.

There is no reprieve for those seeking an escape from unnecessary socialist music festivals. Maduro (once host of the state radio show Salsa Time) recently announced that Venezuela would host the World Merengue Festival in July 2022. Maduro has already invited artists that are friendly to him and the socialist regime of Venezuela, such as Bonny Cepeda, who was denounced for having received $60,000 to sing for Maduro’s birthday.

These festivals and musical events are being used to further the narrative of Venezuela’s miraculous recovery. While the country has seen a sudden ten-percent growth in its GDP, it would still take 17 years to go back to 2013 levels and undo all of the damage caused by the Maduro regime — in a mere economic sense that does not factor in the nearly obliterated public utility infrastructure.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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