Protests over power cuts spread across four Venezuelan states over the weekend. In Guárico it was the third consecutive night of demonstrations; in Zulia, Lara and Carabobo residents came out with pots, horns and burning tyres to demand an explanation from Corpoelec, the state company that runs the grid.
The company made no public statement about these outages.
Three nights in Guárico
In Guárico, protests recurred in Tucupido, Chaguaramas, Calabozo, Zaraza and Camaguán. According to the news site La Patilla, residents of Chaguaramas blocked the national highway at around nine in the evening, banging pots and burning old tyres. One of the chants heard in the street sums up the complaint: "I have no power and I want to work".
Infobae recorded gatherings the same night in the Altos de Jalisco sector and the Coquivacoa parish of Maracaibo, and in the La Sorpresa sector of Puerto Cabello, in Carabobo, where the outage began at about 6.50pm on Friday. In Lara, the protests centred on the La Fuente sector of Carora.
From two hours to sixteen
What explains the anger is not the isolated blackout but the accumulation. Maracaibo residents interviewed by Noticias SIN described cuts of around six hours repeating several times a day — morning, afternoon and overnight — and stretches reaching 16 hours without service. Rationing has reportedly gone from about two hours a day in March to about six in September.
That progression is what turns an infrastructure problem into a working and domestic one: shops that do not open, cold chains that break, remote work made impossible.
The official response, and an appeal to Washington
Acting president Delcy Rodríguez, who took office on 5 January 2026, asked Venezuelans in late August to save electricity and water, attributing the strain on the system to demand levels she said had not been seen since 2017. The government has also signed agreements with GE Vernova and Siemens to restore grid infrastructure.
Chavismo blames the failures on external sanctions; opposition figures and non-governmental organisations link them to neglected maintenance and the state company's management. In Maracaibo some demonstrators called for elections, and community leader Ángel Pérez urged US president Donald Trump and secretary of state Marco Rubio to look beyond the oil business.
Last week, at the UN General Assembly, Rodríguez promised elections without setting a date.
With information from Infobae, La Patilla, Noticias SIN and CNN en Español.
