Hugo Chavez, a former military officer who was once jailed for engineering a failed coup attempt, was elected president of Venezuela in 1998. Chavez, a self-styled democratic socialist, won the presidential election by campaigning against corruption, economic mismanagement, and the “harsh realities” of global capitalism. When he took office in February 1999, Chavez claimed that he had inherited the worst economic situation in the country’s recent history. He wasn’t far off the mark. A collapse in the price of oil, which accounted for 70 percent of the country’s exports, left Venezuela with a large budget deficit and forced the economy into a deep recession. Soon after taking office, Chavez proceeded to try to consolidate his hold over the apparatus of government. A constituent assembly, dominated by Chavez followers, drafted a new constitution that strengthened the powers of the presidency and allowed Chavez (if reelected) to stay in office until 2012. Subsequently, the national congress, which was controlled by Chavez supporters, approved a measure allowing the government to remove and appoint Supreme Court justices, effectively increasing Chavez’s hold over the judiciary. Chavez also extended government control over the media. By 2006, Freedom House, which annually assesses political and civil liberties worldwide, concluded that Venezuela was only “partly free” and that freedoms were being progressively curtailed. On the economic front, things remained rough. The economy shrank by 9 percent in 2002 and another 8 percent in 2003. Unemployment remained persistently high at 15 to 17 percent and the poverty rate rose to more than 50 percent of the population. A 2003 study by the World Bank concluded that Venezuela was one of the most regulated economies in the world and that state controls over business activities gave public officials ample opportunities to enrich themselves by demanding bribes in return for permission to expand operations or enter Chavez’s Venezuela By Charles Hill
Posted on: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 20:20:40 +0000
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