Venezuela: Does an increase in poverty signal threat to government?

[Bacchus4.0]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2015/0325/Venezuela-Does-an-increase-in-poverty-signal-threat-to-government

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Amid soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods and medicine, Venezuela is seeing a steady increase in the number of people who struggle to meet their basic needs. Anywhere from about one-third to nearly half of the population now lives in poverty, according to studies released in recent weeks. And greater hardship for Venezuela's working class could mean trouble down the road for its government.

Two years after President Hugo Chávez’s death, his allies are struggling to keep the country together in the face of protests and falling approval ratings. Mr. Chávez fashioned himself a champion of the poor during his 14 years in office, funneling billions of dollars of Venezuela’s oil wealth into social programs. As poverty fell during his rule, loyalty from this long-ignored sector of the population grew. But Chávez’s handpicked successor, President Nicolás Maduro, inherited a stalling economy, made worse by plummeting international oil prices.

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'Oil party is over'

Frustrations have boiled over in recent months. The government has installed fingerprint scanners in state-run grocery stores to track purchases and deployed the National Guard to maintain order at supermarkets and pharmacies. Lines for hard-to-find items often stretch into the street. Many government-subsidized products wind up in the hands of illegal traders, who resell them at prices that few low-wage workers can afford.

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Windfall oil revenues allowed Chávez to provide subsided food, housing, medical care, and education to the country’s poor. With oil prices at a five-year low, Venezuela is short of money and that means greater scarcity and price inflation, which officially stood at 197 percent in the first two months of this year. Up to 70 percent of all households could fall below the poverty line this year, according to Mr. España’s research, the highest level since poverty statistics started being tracked in the 1980s.