Over a week ago, the current President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, generated a scene of great uproar at one of the main elections of the nation- that for the President of the National Assembly. The position, before the election, was held by Juan Guaido – a man who the United States recognizes as the true interim President of Venezuela. So why are there two leaders and two bodies of power in Venezuela, and how has such a dichotomy affected the nation?
Nicolas Maduro is a successor of Hugo Chavez, who was a champion of the Venezuelans. It was under Chavez’ term that Venezuela saw immense prosperity, mainly due to its prolific oil reserves. Chavez used Venezuela’s newly acquired wealth on large-scale social programs; improving education, healthcare etc. At this point, Venezuela was the richest South American country, and developing quickly. However, Chavez had some motives behind all that he did for the country- he wished to keep the poor of Venezuela happy, perhaps as a way to improve his reelection chances. Some necessary economic steps were never taken by Chavez, primarily reduction of the huge economic dependency of the country on their oil reserves. The over-dependence on oil trade, widespread corruption and huge spending created a precarious situation for Venezuela. Later, upon Chavez’ death, his mentee, Nicolas Maduro took the position of President, and the mistakes of the previous government came rushing in.
Venezuela went into a largescale economic crisis. Currently, the country is on the brink of collapse, with millions of Venezuelans being plunged into poverty. A large number of Venezuelans, estimated to be close to 5 million, have fled their country to those nearby, where they will not face starvation, mass power shortages and rampant violent crime. It is said that every Venezuelan has at least two close friends or relatives who have either died, or have fled the country. Hyperinflation is at a staggering level, with the rate of inflation being estimated to be over 10,000,000% in 2019. The local currency, bolivars, have become so worthless that they are strewn around like waste pieces of paper, and trade is largely done in dollars. People are losing weight rapidly, due to shortage of food, but the economic crisis has affected the healthcare system so it makes it very difficult for sick Venezuelans to get adequate care.
Along with this economic crisis, a dangerous political situation plagues the nation as well. The current President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro was elected in 2013. He dropped quickly in popularity as the economic condition of the country began to decline during his first term. Furthermore, he attempted to remove the Opposition by creating an alternate to the National Assembly, the Opposition-led government body, called the National Constituent Assembly. This new body was filled with loyalists and given the power that the National Assembly previously had. He also filled the Venezuelan courts with his followers, effectively removing any opposition to his actions within the government. This led to widespread protests, known as the “Mother of all Protests”, in which somewhere between 3 to 6 million Venezuelans took to the streets. Regardless of his unpopularity, Maduro was reelected in May 2018, in an election that was largely condemned to be unfair, rigged, and hence invalid. Many of the opposition candidates in the election had been imprisoned, had fled the country or boycotted the election. In 2019, Juan Guaido, the leader of the National Assembly, declared himself the true President of Venezuela and was recognized as such by many countries around the world; within Venezuela, however, he has little to no power. This leads us to the events that took place in the beginning of January of this year, when the elections to the National Assembly were set to take place. Guaido was physically prevented from entering the Assembly, and Luis Parra, a Maduro loyalist was elected the new President. The impasse between Guaido and Parra was eventually won by Guaido, but the future events and the fate of the Venezuelan people remain to be seen. With the USA having imposed a huge amount of financial sanctions, and the world wondering whether they will resort to military intervention, one can only hope that this crisis can be solved and the suffering of the Venezuelans can soon come to an end.