Power To The Poor

Hasn't been seen in public since September, hasn't been heard, either. What a relief. Something like how Cubans must feel with Fidel Castro no longer addressing them nationally for tedious long hours, morning passing into night. And Hugo Chavez, after all, is still in Cuba, isn't he? Fourth cancer operation. Doesn't sound good.

Venezuela would be far, far better off without him. He has, in effect, done to Venezuela what Robert Mugabe did to Zimbabwe; beggared the country. Venezuela has not spurted ahead in stability and economic growth like its Latin neighbours, despite its oil wealth; it has posted some of the worst growth rates in South America.

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Supporters of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, one of them holding a sign with an image of him, gather outside of the National Assembly during the state-of-the-nation address in Caracas, Venezuela earlier this week.

Fernando Llano/AP

As the economy collapses further, violent crime increases in tandem. By 2011 Caracas was reputed to have the highest murder rate per capita of any city in the world. Higher than the death rates due to violence in war zone countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. That's quite the accomplishment.

Hugo Chavez, champion of the downtrodden, the poor. Not that many years ago he was underwriting home heating for poor Americans, while deriding their government. He squandered the country's oil wealth, spreading it around to his neighbours just pulling themselves into economic advance. And now he needs loans from China for national survival.

He hated the urban middle classes and the Venezuelan elite. And when he attained power he steadily assumed more power for himself, and included a close circle of friends and allies. When he nationalized key industries he helped his friends and allies to enrich themselves at the expense of private businesspeople, putting them in their place.

He become beloved of the poor when he subsidized health care and food, and provided cheap credit for start-up community projects around the country. By mid-2000, he had invited many foreign investors to leave, especially in the oil sector. And while government spending increased, Chavez gave control of companies to close friends.

Price controls he introduced along with economic mismanagement which he also excelled at, made it hard for the average small business to remain viable. Foreign investors were happy to bail out. Leaving the national oil company incapable of meeting production quotas and its aging infrastructure breaking down.

He replaced private television stations with state TV, forcing all others off the air. He imprisoned judges who had the nerve to issue rulings that annoyed him. His backers in the National Assembly passed laws inviting him to continue ruling by decree. Freedom House has long ranked Venezuela, traditionally representing one of the oldest democracies in Latin America, as "partly free".

And right now in Venezuela, consumers are hard put to find basic food on the shelves. Staples like sugar, milk, chicken and corn flour are hard to find. "We're replacing one product with another. First there was no beef, now no chicken. Last night I made eggs for my family's dinner", said Rosa Garcia, a real estate agent who had searched 3 days for meat across Caracas neighbourhoods.

People are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with long lines and shortages at their local markets. This is Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, his Bolivian Revolution.