VENEZUELA CRISIS.
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A socioeconomic and political crisis has been taking place in Venezuela since 2010 under the presidency of Hugo Chávez and has continued into the current presidency of Nicolás Maduro. The current situation is the worst economic crisis in history of that country.
Increasing oil prices in the early 2000s led to levels of funds not seen in Venezuela since the 1980s.Intending to maintain political power through social programs,Chávez established Bolivarian missions,aimed at providing public services to improve economic and social conditions.
The Missions entailed the construction of thousands of free medical clinics for the poor and the enactment of food and housing subsidies.
However, Venezuela began to face economic difficulties due to Chávez's populist policies and on 2 June 2010, he declared an "economic war"
The social works initiated by Chávez's government relied on oil products, the cornerstone of the Venezuelan economy, with Chávez's administration suffering from Dutch disease as a result of oil Prices falling thus significantly Affecting the economy.
By the end of Chávez's presidency in the early 2010s, economic actions performed by his government throughout his reign such as overspending and price controls,proved to be unsustainable. Venezuela's economy collapsed while poverty,inflation and shortages in Venezuela increasing.
In early 2013, shortly after Chávez's death, Foreign Policy stated that whoever succeeded Chávez would "inherit one of the most dysfunctional economies in the Americas—and just as the bill for the deceased leader’s policies comes due"
Following Chávez's death, Nicolás Madurobecame president after defeating his opponent Henrique Capriles Radonski by a mere 235,000 votes, a 1.5% margin.
Maduro continued most of the existing economic policies of his predecessor Chávez and upon entering the presidency, Maduro faced a high inflation rate and large shortages of goods,problems left over from Chávez's populist policies
Having being clueless about governance ,his regime enacted economic measures as "economic offensives" against political opponents whom he and his loyalists believes are behind an international economic conspiracy
Maduro instead of coming up with ideas and plans to solve economic problems, he resorted to silencing his opponents and killing dissidents.
It is impossible to understand why the government is not reacting to this reality, why it has not taken measures to alleviate the economic distortions that are destroying the real income of Venezuelans.
Under the Maduro government, housing shortages continued to worsen. Maduro announced in 2014 that due to the shortage of steel, abandoned cars and other vehicles would be acquired by the government and melted to provide rebar for housing.
In April 2014, Maduro ruled by decree that Venezuelans who owned three or more rental properties would be forced by the government to sell their rental units at a set price or they would face fines or have their property possessed by the government.
Under the economic policy of the Nicolás Maduro government, greater shortages has occurred due to the Venezuelan government's policy of withholding United States dollars from importers with price controls.
Shortages occur in regulated products, such as milk, various types of meat, chicken, coffee, rice, oil, precooked flour, butter prices; and also basic necessities like toilet paper, personal hygiene products and medicine.
As a result of the shortages, Venezuelans must search for food, occasionally resorting to eating wild fruit or garbage, wait in lines for hours and sometimes settle without having certain products
As a result of the crisis, Venezuela suffered its highest unemployment rate in years. Due to the inflation and expropriations by the Venezuelan government to private companies, many others left the country, which in turn increased unemployment for those remaining.
Discontent with the Government saw the opposition being elected to hold the majority in the National Assembly for the first time since 1999 following the 2015 parliamentary election.
The political crisis was unleashed in October 2016 when at least six lower Venezuelan state criminal courts declared void the previous processes of collecting signatures in their states.
As a consequence, the National Electoral Council declared the end of the national referendum for the removal of Nicolás Maduro from the presidency of Venezuela, following previous opinions of the Supreme Court of Justice
The Venezuelan opposition, through the Bureau of Democratic Unity, announced in reaction a peaceful demonstration at the national level, called "Venezuela takeover", to be held throughout the country from Wednesday 26 October 2016 and with indefinite duration.
Likewise, the Venezuelan National Assembly, which had been declared "in contempt" by the Venezuelan Supreme Court, declared the "rupture of the constitutional order" in Venezuela in an extraordinary session.
Following the 2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis,and the push to ban potential opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles from politics for 15 years, protests begun. During the 2017 protests, the Mother of all Protests involved from 2.5 million to 6 million protesters
Maduro's regime responded by deploying military to quell the protests ,killing protesters.A humanitarian crisis ensued that has forced millions of Venezuelans to flee their own country.
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