That saying “I’m on Latin American time” is ringing true these days. Back in August, Hugo Chavez decided he was going to change the time in Venezuela to make sure workers wake up more rested. Now newly elected Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is following suit…and it’s pissing some Argentines off:

…She decreed that the clocks should go forward by an hour on December 30th for eleven weeks in a desperate attempt to allay energy shortages.

Its geographical position suggests that most of Argentina should be four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time. But it has been only three hours behind for most of the period since 1969, when a military government made summer time last the whole year. Now it is just two hours behind, until mid-March.

The shift is intended to forestall further electricity blackouts—a big power cut left much of Buenos Aires in the dark earlier this month. The cause of the energy shortage is simple: four years of price controls under Ms Fernández’s husband, who preceded her in the presidency, have left average energy costs a third below those of neighbouring countries, boosting demand and discouraging investment in supply.

What this means for residents of Argentina is that at 10:00 p.m., it’s still light outside, throwing off sleep and wake cycles. That sounds like the opposite of what Cristina’s Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez wanted for his program. Even worse, The Economist reports that “early signs are that the switch may not save energy.”

Via / The Economist