Venezuela is in crisis. But it didn’t start now. It also didn’t start with Hugo Chávez’s election in 1998.
Or with the coup he suffered in 2002. Or even with the coup he attempted in 1992. Today’s crisis is part of a long chain of crisis.
Together, they led Venezuelans to a crossroad; or to the dead end where they find themselves right now. To understand what’s been happening in Venezuela it’s necessary to go back at least to 1989. Carlos Andrés Pérez was the president.
Once the government increased the prices of fuel and plain tickets, people took the streets. They burned vehicles, houses and shops, mainly in the capital, Caracas. This riot became known as the “caracazo”.
This riot became known as the “caracazo”. At that time, political parties and politicians were already defamed. The country was sinking into corruption scandals, and president Pérez — who was working on a series of liberal reforms — appealed to the militaries to protect himself.
The repression on the “caracazo” was brutal: it left between 300 and 3. 000 dead. Since many were buried in mass graves, the exact number will be never known.
Society and the army split. A group of left-wing militaries found the repression of the protesters misplaced. With popular support, they went for the government.
On February 1992, the first coup attempt against Pérez took place. Amongst the involved there was a parachutist from the army named Hugo Chávez Frías. Forces loyal to president Pérez fought back.
Chávez ended up in jail, but his story didn't end up here. On November 1992, Chávez’s companions tried a new coup. Again, they failed.
It was big. The two rebellions left more than 300 dead in Venezuela. What the army was unable to do by force, Justice accomplished through an impeachment process.
Then, in 1993, Pérez was forced to step down. The following election, at that same year, was won by Rafael Caldera. He pardoned the coup.
hávez got out of jail and, five years later, in 1998, won his first presidential election with 56% of the votes. There are two key-terms to understand Chávez’s mandates. The first one is “chavism”.
The second one, “bolivarianism”. Chavism grew into a cult of the new president’s charismatic personality. And also into the support of a nationalizing and centralizing economic agenda, baptized by Chávez himself as the “21st century socialism”.
Bolivarianism, on the other hand, was the backdrop . The expression came from Simon Bolivar’s name :the man who led the struggle against the Spanish colonization in the 19th century. Chávez self-proclaimed himself as Bolivar’s inheritor, taking over a strong figure in the popular imaginary.
In 1999, a year after he was elected, Chávez called a national referendum. People went to the polls and approved a huge change in the Constitution. The Parliament became an unicameral entity.
The Senate and Chamber structure (the system we have in Brazil) was extinct. In its place, a single National Assembly was created. Under the new Constitution, Chávez ran for office again.
And won again, in the year 2000, with a larger percentage than the first time: 59%. Besides the presidency, he also conquered a vast majority in the new Assembly. With his power extended, the president issued new decrees, nationalized lands and companies, and rushed the approval of laws at the National Assembly, increasing the government’s intervention n the economy, especially when it came to oil, the country’s main commodity.
Those measures deepened his Bolivarian project. Many businessmen and unions reacted. The country faced major general strikes and street protests during that period.
Then, on 11 April 2002, both a Chavist march and an opponent march met in Caracas. The confrontation resulted in 19 deaths and more than 100 injuries. On the following day, a group of politicians, businessmen and soldiers forced Chávez to step down.
The army officer who had tried himself to stage a coup in 1992 was the victim of another coup ten years later. The coup, however, didn’t last long. hree days later, government troops overturned the action and brought Chávez back to the Miraflores Palace, which is the official residence of the Venezuelan government.
Since then, both the government and the opposition radicalized their attitudes. Chávez dismissed thousands of workers from PDVSA, the national oil company. They were charged with sabotage crimes.
In June 2004, the opposition called a referendum to remove Chávez from office. But the president came out victorious. With 59% of the votes, he strengthened his position.
On the following year, 2005, the opposition withdrew from legislative elections. They claimed that Electoral Justice was dominated by Chavism and the country’s elections were no longer free. Because of this, abstentions hit 70%.
The Chavists, then, maintained the majority of seats in the Parliament. In 2006, Chávez won another presidential election — the third one in eight years — with 62% of the votes. He then proposed another constitutional reform.
Among the motions, there was one that allowed the president unlimited reelections. This one, however, he couldn’t pass into law. At the end of 2012, Chávez ran and won his fourth and final election, with 55% of the votes.
Already ill, he died on 5 March 2013, victim of cancer. Nicolás Maduro, the vice-president and Chávez godson, had been carrying out the presidential duties since then. Since Chávez died before his fourth presidential inauguration, new elections were called for 2013.
Maduro, who had previously worked as a bus driver, an union man and, later, as a secretary in Chávez’s government, ran for the election. He won with a little more than 50% of the votes — a super narrow margin — and took office. However, two years later, at the 2015 Legislative Elections, the strengthened opposition conquered the majority of seats in the National Assembly for the first time since the advent of Chavism.
The new correlation of forces increased the pressure on the new president. The opposition tried to call a referendum to unseat Maduro before the end of his term, which was supposed to end in 2018. The Electoral Justice vetoed the request under the argument that the signatures in the petition in support of the referendum were fake.
The Assembly rebelled. And the Superior Court of Justice - wich is the equivalent to the Supreme, in Brasi - took action. The economy sunk into deep crisis.
In 2016, inflation hit 254%. In the same year, child mortality increased 30%. Social improvements celebrated by Chavism melted down.
In 1999, when Chávez took office, Venezuela’s GDP was worth 97 billions US dollars. When he died, in 2013, it was worth US$ 371 billions. Therefore, the GDP was multiplied by three.
Life expectancy increased But these indicators started to change when the oil price collapsed. The dependence on oil as their economic engine has kept Venezuela from investing on the development of industry and agriculture over the years. When trade balance was positive, the country used the dollars that came in to import the goods it didn’t produce by itself.
However, when the national economy was shook, there was no more money to buy. In 2016, more than 40% of the goods were lacking in Venezuelan market. Among the goods that were regulated by the government, shortages hit 80%.
There was a lack of food, medicine, toilet paper — people’s basic physiological products. The worst economic crisis of Venezuela’s history took thousands to the streets once again. The government restrained them with violence.
Human rights organizations accused Maduro of arresting dissidents for political reasons. Government forces were accused of disappearances, torture and execution of oppositionists. Venezuela’s new presidential elections are scheduled for 2018.
Should the country keep with the same pace of the last 28 years, this will be another chapter of a crisis that doesn’t seem to be close to an end. If the divisions take the democratic path, this will be a crossroad. If tensions keep increasing, Venezuela may find itself in a dead end.
