Civil Disobedience: Venezuela’s Political And Economic Instability

The case of Venezuela’s high corruption and instability rates continues to be extremely prevalent in the lives of its civilians today. Venezuela has been in an unprecedented economic and political crisis which has been marked by severe food and medicine shortages, soaring crime rates, and increasing authoritarian executives in charge. “After decades of generally benevolent military rule, Venezuela’s modern democratic era began in 1959. However, under the rule of the Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president from 1999 to 2013 and his handpicked successor Nicolás Maduro, the executive branch has abused high authoritarian control and democratic institutions have gravely deteriorated.” (Heritage) However, the country is exceptionally dependent on oil revenues since it has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, making them a founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Oil is definitely one of the main components of their state exports and half of its revenues. “But over the years, its oil production has fallen due to the government mismanagement of state-owned oil company PDVSA.” (Heritage) Due to the country’s severe political and economic instability, the role of civil disobedience through protests and social media has been widely used in efforts to bring attention and aid to the crisis at hand.

Maduro supporters blame falling oil prices and the country’s “corrupt” business elites instead. Venezuela used to be known as the wealthiest country in Latin America due to its abundant oil reserves that made up 96% of the federal budget. In 2008, its oil exports brought $48 billion but in 2016, the number dropped to $5.3 billion. Printing money an exuberant amount and obtaining full control on goods in order to keep the government’s initiatives alive have caused inflation rates to drastically increase, and the value of the Venezuelan currency of bolivar to decrease. Venezuela’s inflation rate is the world’s highest and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) states that the 100-bolivar banknote that makes up about 77% of the country’s currency is worth only $0.03.

The drastic inflation has affected the economy so much that the government has gone to extreme measures to manage all food supplies by dictating what people can buy and when. The average Venezuelan can only buy food on a specific day based on their identification, or cedula, numbers after waiting in line for hours. The shelves of supermarkets are almost always empty and necessities are rare to find. The food shortage is so out of hand but Maduro’s response to suffering civilians is for them to farm and raise their own food, which is still an infeasible recommendation. Since then, people have resorted to buying and trading on the black market, even though the prices are super high, making even a carton of a dozen eggs worth $150. The scarier part is that medical supplies have also become very scarce and made medical care almost impossible to have. The Human Rights Watch has even stated that the Maduro government response to the crisis as “woefully inadequate” and pointed out that small effort has been made to secure humanitarian assistance from the international community.

Venezuelan civilians truly enjoy very few civil liberties and have very little economic freedom, which in turn has created high crime rates and lack of security within the country. Heavy gang activity, armed political factions, both for and against, the Maduro government, drug cartels, and paramilitary groups that operate in the face of weak law enforcement have heightened levels of crime. Even national security forces have committed violence and murder against their own civilians. With such increasing instability and insecurity, Caracas, the country’s capital, is the most dangerous city in the world with the highest murder rate.

Despite all of these apparent critical issues, the government and the government’s supporters have blamed external actors for the country’s existing problems. The government claims that an economic war led from the United States aimed at destabilizing the Venezuelan economy is responsible for the whole crisis and that even Colombian mafias are hoarding the Venezuelan currency and are the cause of their drastic inflation rate. The government has gone as far to stop publishing their official economic figures to not attract attention to the problem and fired the head of their central bank when the inflation rates ended up coming out and being leaked. As one of many consequences, opposing political parties have tried to pass a referendum, a general vote by the electorate on a single political question which has been referred to them for a direct decision, to find a way to remove the president from office. The attempt was unsuccessful due to Maduro stalling any action towards it and declaring a state of emergency.

For the first time in nearly two decades, opposition lawmakers took a majority in the legislature, the National Assembly on January 2016. However, the Maduro government have continued to take drastic measures and take advantage of the legislature’s powers in order to consolidate his power. Therefore, Maduro’s actions have been confronted with massive protests, international criticism, and threats of expulsion from the Organization of American States. Human rights groups are pleading the Organization of American States to hold meetings that would start a democratic charter and stop Venezuela’s anti-democratic and dictator behavior. However, the international community has had a lot of trouble influencing the government because of its oil income has helped the country keep autonomy, the right or condition of self-government, making it seem to other countries that they are able to support themselves. The government has not accepted any humanitarian assistance offered from nearby countries because they do not want to owe anything to any other nation.

Maintaining absolute power is so important to President Maduro that in 2017, he tried to give a coup d’Etat, a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government, through the Supreme Government which is fully controlled by the government. This was an effort to eliminate the powers of the National Assembly, or congress, and the immunity of the members of the assembly. The increasing impatience from Venezuelan citizens over the years has led to enormous amounts of peaceful protests and civil disobedience. Regardless of the peaceful mindset of the people, they have been met with extreme force and violence from the Venezuelan guard and police, resulting in numerous citizen deaths, arrests, and illegal sentences from the military. Maduro has been able to keep his dictatorship power through a deceiving constitutional assembly that is comprised of his supporters that he has bribed by promising them money and amenities for a better living in exchange for their loyalty.

The most recent occurence of civil disobedience against the Venezuelan government was led by self-declared interim president Juan Guaido. Beforehand, Guaido had become the leader of the oppositional National Assembly and later in a superfast election took oath to serve as the interim president of Venezuela due to the ongoing governmental crisis. According to the Venezuelan Constitution, the leader of the National Assembly can serve as the interim president of the Office of the President of the Republic becomes empty, which has not happened yet. This loophole, although seeming illegitimate due to Maduro still being in power, has been a game changer due to Guaido’s presidency being recognized by several countries including the United States and other Latin American countries. With support from neighboring countries, Guaido feels confident that he will eventually succeed in office even though Maduro has no plans of backing out any time.

All the political traction caused by Guaido sparked support from big celebrities and donors and another big peaceful movement on social media called the Venezuela Live Aid, with #AidVenezuela widely trending on social media and attracting thousands of followers. According to the Venezuela Live Aid organization the event’s three main goals were “to bring awareness and sensitize the world about the humanitarian crisis Venezuela is currently facing and receive donations in hopes of supporting the ones who are suffering, reopen the border, so that humanitarian aid that has been blocked from going in and the funds raised during the event can reach those who need it most, and the humanitarian contribution generated by Venezuela Aid Live will be destined towards a sustainable social investment for Venezuela.” The event took place on February 22, 2019 in Cucuta, Colombia which is the border between Colombia and Venezuela. Juan Guaido supported the huge free concert that was live-streamed to several medias. The event brought together 317,000 people has raised around $60 million dollars up to date. However, despite all of the aid that was since then accumulated, Maduro has denied any aid or emergency food or medicine.