For understanding what Venezuela is going through, one has to look at its supermarket shelves. Years of mismanagement and rhetoric has snowballed into an economic and political crisis. Like all Communist governments, Venezuela’s regime has been given to bluster from the times of the maverick Hugo Chavez who took pride in being called people’s president and relied on populism than governance. He left a legacy of ‘Chavism’ inherited by his protégé and current President Nicolas Maduro after Chavez’s death. As a debilitating crisis wallops the South American nation, one cannot but help remember the last days of Communism in the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc. While the USSR tried to hold on to a legacy on its deathbed, people ran out of essential supplies. There were no staples in supermarkets and public resentment was suppressed by force. The implosion of a system given to Communism was complete and the resulting mess ran across swathes of geopolitical entities in the Soviet sphere of influence.
Irresponsible regimes try to distract the population from the establishment’s failings by an aggressive foreign policy, blaming a foreign power for their woes or resorting to flexing military muscle.
While the nation suffers under an emergency imposed by the President, Venezuela launched military exercises to show its purported readiness to take on the enemy. While Venezuelans wait in long queues outside stores and a power crisis plagues the nation, Maduro was lauding his military and praising his generals after the war games.
The opposition has gone ballistic demanding the ouster of the president who it claims has been unable to run the South American nation that has its economy ruined after oil prices went into a tailspin. Venezuela has been a victim of populist policies of the government and a neglect of the state exchequer. The country’s economy, which is overdependent on oil exports, doesn’t have sufficient surplus funds to fall back on in times of crisis. The government led by Maduro has been resisting demands for a referendum against his rule. The judiciary, seen to be pliable, has backed the president who has portrayed himself as a victim of the so-called imperialistic machinations of the United States.
It is fashionable for some South American nations to blame Washington for their ills. Countries such as Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela find it easy to pass the buck up north when their mismanaged countries start showing signs of strain. United States may have geostrategic interests in the region and is known to back opposition to elected governments, but blaming it for everything that is wrong with Venezuela will do Maduro no good.
For understanding what Venezuela is going through, one has to look at its supermarket shelves. Years of mismanagement and rhetoric has snowballed into an economic and political crisis. Like all Communist governments, Venezuela’s regime has been given to bluster from the times of the maverick Hugo Chavez who took pride in being called people’s president and relied on populism than governance. He left a legacy of ‘Chavism’ inherited by his protégé and current President Nicolas Maduro after Chavez’s death. As a debilitating crisis wallops the South American nation, one cannot but help remember the last days of Communism in the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc. While the USSR tried to hold on to a legacy on its deathbed, people ran out of essential supplies. There were no staples in supermarkets and public resentment was suppressed by force. The implosion of a system given to Communism was complete and the resulting mess ran across swathes of geopolitical entities in the Soviet sphere of influence.
Irresponsible regimes try to distract the population from the establishment’s failings by an aggressive foreign policy, blaming a foreign power for their woes or resorting to flexing military muscle.
While the nation suffers under an emergency imposed by the President, Venezuela launched military exercises to show its purported readiness to take on the enemy. While Venezuelans wait in long queues outside stores and a power crisis plagues the nation, Maduro was lauding his military and praising his generals after the war games.
The opposition has gone ballistic demanding the ouster of the president who it claims has been unable to run the South American nation that has its economy ruined after oil prices went into a tailspin. Venezuela has been a victim of populist policies of the government and a neglect of the state exchequer. The country’s economy, which is overdependent on oil exports, doesn’t have sufficient surplus funds to fall back on in times of crisis. The government led by Maduro has been resisting demands for a referendum against his rule. The judiciary, seen to be pliable, has backed the president who has portrayed himself as a victim of the so-called imperialistic machinations of the United States.
It is fashionable for some South American nations to blame Washington for their ills. Countries such as Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela find it easy to pass the buck up north when their mismanaged countries start showing signs of strain. United States may have geostrategic interests in the region and is known to back opposition to elected governments, but blaming it for everything that is wrong with Venezuela will do Maduro no good.
