The Political Landscape in Venezuela
Vente Venezuela is a classical liberal party in Venezuela. The party was founded ten years ago by María Corina Machado, who the majority of venezuelans claim to be the only hope for the future, growth, and development of the country. Vente Venezuela stands for individual and market freedom, and equality before the law.
Since 1959, Venezuela’s democracy has been damaged, defined as a “deficit” democracy. There was never a democratization project in the country. The first elections that took place after the fall of the antepenultimate dictator, Marcos Pérez Jiménez, led to the Constitution of 1961 which was valid until 2000. It was then that Chavez overturned the Constitution using a constituent project that was spread to other countries with hopes of destabilizing modern western democracies.
In 1962, democracy in the country suffered a big blow when the government at the time decided to suspend economic rights and guarantees that were protected in the 1961 Constitution. This contributed to why Venezuela has not reached the levels of progress, welfare and development that were expected.
Four decades later, an agreement was reached between only two parties, Acción Democrática and Copei. The agreement ended with a coup d’état led by Chávez putting an end to a period dominated by bipartisanship.
At this moment, Vente Venezuela is the only party that claims to be an “opposition”. Even though some parties do not completely support the current government, party leaders and organizers are often manipulated and blackmailed by the regime into showing support for the government.
The regime co-opts them through corruption. Venezuela has one of the highest government corruption rates in the world.
The biggest challenge in Venezuelan politics is to restore the people’s trust. In the last election cycle, only 28% of the Venezuelans eligible to vote exerted their right, leaving 72% of eligible voters disenchanted by the election system. Many do not believe in the government anymore and they have lost hope for any future changes. 84% of Venezuelans oppose socialism while 91% of them do not believe in any other existing political party. But Vente Venezuela is the exception.
The Economic Situation in Venezuela
Venezuela had every opportunity to become a great economic power. It has valuable resources, like oil, gas, diamonds and gold in the subsoil, the continent’s most important water reservoir and more. The suspension of economic rights in 1962 led to a situation of chaos in the country’s economy.
Now, more than 90.4% of Venezuelans suffer from multidimensional poverty. (Multidimensional poverty encompasses the various deprivations experienced by poor people in their daily lives – such as poor health, lack of education, inadequate living standards, disempowerment, poor quality of work, the threat of violence, and living in areas that are environmentally hazardous, among others.).
And more than 74% of the population is living in extreme poverty. The difference being that a person is deprived of three or more of ten weighted indicators across health, education and living standards for MPI. While extreme poverty is defined as living below the International Poverty Line of $1.90 per day.”
According to the world bank, the extreme poverty line is defined 2.15$ per person per day and in Venezuela, monthly salaries are below 30$, making them dependent on humanitarian aid from organizations or the UN.
As if that was not enough, Venezuela is placed towards the very bottom of the Doing Business Ranking list, making it the lowest in South America, (lowest in the continent, top 3 in the world) (last one made in 2019)
The Social Situation in Venezuela
There are more than 7,3 million people that make up the Venezuelan diaspora, making it one of the biggest displacements in the world. Nearly 1,000 Venezuelans leave the country every day. It is considered as one of the worst current humanitarian crises happening in the world with others in Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.
Though there may be no war in Venezuela, there is certainly a battle between truth, misinformation, and the media. The country lacks proper media presence. TV media is under government control and the printed press no longer exists, leaving the population to rely on the internet. And, due to the exodus of young people, the country is left with a disproportionate amount of middle-aged people who, in most cases, have limited access to technology.
Sources:
- https://ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index/
- https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mpi-vs-consumption#:~:text=Being%20'MPI%20poor'%20means%20that,Line%20of%20%241.90%20per%20day
- https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/factsheet/2022/05/02/fact-sheet-an-adjustment-to-global-poverty-lines#:~:text=The%20new%20international%20poverty%20line,in%20this%20situation%20in%202019