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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has declared that Christmas will come early this year, on October 1, as he seeks to impart some holiday cheer after a disputed presidential election the opposition claims he stole.<\/span><\/p>\n The 61-year-old is set for a third six-year term despite an outcry from the opposition and international community over the results of a July 28 election.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn homage to you, in gratitude to you, I am going to decree that Christmas be brought forward to October 1,\u201d Maduro said during a television appearance Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n It is not the first time that Maduro has changed the date of Christmas since taking the reins of the Catholic-majority country from Hugo Chavez in 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n This time, the move appears to be a move to distract the populace from anger over the election the opposition claims it rightfully won.<\/span><\/p>\n The United States and several Latin American countries support the Venezuelan opposition\u2019s claim to victory, while even Maduro-friendly Mexico, Colombia and Brazil have refused to recognize the official result without seeing detailed vote tallies.<\/span><\/p>\n The elections agency has said it cannot publish the records as hackers had corrupted the data, though observers have said there was no evidence of that.<\/span><\/p>\n Prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia \u2014 who is in hiding \u2014 over his insistence that he won the polls.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNobody in this country is above the laws, the institutions, as this \u2026 coward Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, has tried to be,\u201d said Maduro.<\/span><\/p>\n Protests after Maduro\u2019s alleged victory was announced left 25 civilians and two soldiers dead, nearly 200 people and more than 2,400 jailed.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Publisher Kindly share: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has declared that Christmas will come early this year, on October 1,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[632],"class_list":["post-2123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-president-nicolas-maduro"],"yoast_head":"\n