"Now that the economic emergency decree has validity, in the next few days I will activate a series of measures I had been working on," he said Thursday, in a televised statement meant to address a "food emergency" declared by Congress.

The "validity" Maduro references comes from a high court ruling that gives the President expanded powers to tackle a deepening economic crisis that's left hospitals without medicine and grocery stores bereft of food.

"The controversial move by the Supreme Court, which critics say is packed with supporters of Mr Maduro's socialist government, potentially sets the scene for a bitter institutional crisis amid claims that the national assembly is being undermined," FT notes, underscoring the extent to which opposition lawmakers - who in December won 99 of 167 seats that were up for grabs in what amounted to the worst defeat in history for Hugo Chavez's leftist movement - feel as though last year's election victory may have been a ruse designed to lend legitimacy to a system that is, and likely always will be, deeply undemocratic.