Setting the Record Straight on Venezuela
Setting the Record Straight on Venezuela
The Bolivarian Revolution hasn’t been perfect, but it’s improved the lives of millions in the face of violent opposition.
by Steve Ellner
12.4.15
In many ways, Hugo Chávez’s legacy is at stake on December 6. An opposition victory in Venezuela’s National Assembly elections would undoubtedly fuel an anti-Chávez narrative that is both simplistic and deceptive, jeopardizing the deceased president’s well-earned fame as a champion of the underprivileged.
The opposition is poised to benefit from the country’s ongoing economic difficulties. Venezuelans face hours-long lines to purchase some basic commodities and an inability to obtain others, as well as an annual inflation rate that for the first time since 1996 has reached three digits.
In the face of these real political and economic problems, which are partly due to plummeting oil prices, opposition forces are ratcheting up their attacks by harping on the unsustainable nature of Chávez’s policies. The Washington-based magazine Foreign Policy titled one article on Venezuela’s economy “The Curse of Chávez’s Ghost.” Similarly, the opening sentence of a Council on Foreign Relations report titled Venezuela’s Economic Fractures reads “Hugo Chávez’s transformative presidency left behind an economic model that has sown deep, heated divisions within Venezuelan society.”
The basic argument here is that the chickens — in the form of Chávez’s populist policies — have come home to roost, generating extreme hardship. Some anti-leftist writers such as Mexico’s Jorge Castañeda even maintain that the social programs of leftist (or “populist”) leaders such as Chávez (as well as Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa) are inherently unsustainable.
More:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/venezuela-elections-hugo-chavez-maduro/