Left In The Lurch

With support from Cuba, Maduro's socialist regime stays afloat, and it continues to create poverty out of prosperity

- R. Viswanathan

ON JANUARY 10, Nicolas Maduro started his second term as president of Venezuela. The political drama behind his rigged re-election, the economic collapse of the country and the traumatisation of the society resemble the story of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The Venezuelan reality, however, is even more bizarre than the magical realism in the Marquez novel.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, even more than that of Saudi Arabia. Besides oil, the country is blessed with minerals, hydroelectric potential, arable land, a pleasant climate and beautiful beaches. In the 1960s, Venezuela's per capita GDP was much higher than that of Brazil and Colombia. Venezuelan capital Caracas was the only destination for Concorde flights in Latin America. On weekends, the Venezuelan middle class used to go to Miami for shopping. The country was a vibrant democracy, while many countries in the region languished under military rule.

Since then, most of Latin America has moved on with a new paradigm of democratic maturity and economic growth, while Venezuela has gone backwards with a toxic combination of authoritarianism, political chaos, economic disaster, hyperinflation, shortage of food and medicine, rampant crime and corruption. The Chavistas, the followers of former president, the late Hugo Chavez, have given a bad name to socialism.