{"id":4701,"date":"2017-07-31T20:19:29","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T20:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=4701"},"modified":"2017-10-03T15:02:08","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T15:02:08","slug":"38-5-2-venezuela-and-chavismo","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/chapter\/38-5-2-venezuela-and-chavismo\/","title":{"raw":"Venezuela and Chavismo","rendered":"Venezuela and Chavismo"},"content":{"raw":"<h2 id=\"concept_1630\">38.5.2: Venezuela and Chavismo<\/h2>\r\n<div class=\"brief\">\r\n\r\nUnder the presidency of Hugo Ch\u00e1vez from 1999 to 2013, Venezuela saw sweeping and radical shifts in social policy, marked by a move away from the government officially embracing a free market economy and neoliberal reform principles and a move\u00a0towards the government embracing socialist income redistribution and social welfare programs.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h3>Learning Objective<\/h3>\r\nSummarize the defining characteristics of Chavismo\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\r\n<h3>Key Points<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>With many Venezuelans tired of politics in the country, the 1998 elections had the lowest voter turnout in Venezuelan history, with Hugo Ch\u00e1vez winning the presidency on December 6, 1998 with 56.4% of the popular vote.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1999, Ch\u00e1vez focused on enacting social reforms as part of his \"Bolivarian Revolution.\"<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Using record-high oil revenues of the 2000s, his government nationalized key industries, created participatory democratic Communal Councils, and implemented social programs known as the Bolivarian Missions to expand access to food, housing, healthcare, and education.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Venezuela received high oil profits in the mid-2000s and there were improvements in areas such as poverty, literacy, income equality, and quality of life occurring primarily between 2003 and 2007.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>At the end of Ch\u00e1vez's presidency in the early 2010s, economic actions performed by his government during the preceding decade such as deficit spending and price controls proved to be unsustainable, with Venezuela's economy faltering while poverty, inflation, and supply shortages in Venezuela increased.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Ch\u00e1vez died of cancer on March 5, 2013 at the age of 58, and was was succeeded by Nicol\u00e1s Maduro (initially as interim president before he narrowly won the 2013 presidential election).<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Maduro continued many of the policies of Ch\u00e1vez, leading to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans protesting over high levels of criminal violence, corruption, hyperinflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods due to policies of the federal government.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox examples\">\r\n<h3>Key Terms<\/h3>\r\n<dl class=\"key_terms\">\r\n \t<dt><strong>Hugo Ch\u00e1vez<\/strong><\/dt>\r\n \t<dd>A Venezuelan politician who served as the 64th President of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. He was also leader of the Fifth Republic Movement from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until 2012. Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1999, he focused on enacting social reforms as part of the Bolivarian Revolution, which is a type of socialist revolution. Using record-high oil revenues of the 2000s, his government nationalized key industries, created participatory democratic Communal Councils, and implemented social programs known as the Bolivarian Missions to expand access to food, housing, healthcare, and education.<\/dd>\r\n \t<dt><strong>Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/strong><\/dt>\r\n \t<dd>A Venezuelan politician who has been the 65th President of Venezuela since 2013. Previously he served under President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2013 and as Vice President of Venezuela from 2012 to 2013.<\/dd>\r\n \t<dt><strong>Chavismo<\/strong><\/dt>\r\n \t<dd>A left-wing political ideology that is based on the ideas, programs, and government style associated with the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. It combines elements of socialism, left-wing populism, patriotism, internationalism, bolivarianism, post-democracy, feminism, green politics, and Caribbean and Latin American integration.<\/dd>\r\n<\/dl>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h1>Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela<\/h1>\r\nThe Bolivarian Revolution is a leftist social movement and political process in Venezuela that was led by late Venezuelan president Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, the founder of the Fifth Republic Movement and later the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. The \"Bolivarian Revolution\" is named after Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar, an early 19th-century Venezuelan and Latin American revolutionary leader, prominent in the Spanish American wars of independence in achieving the independence of most of northern South America from Spanish rule. According to Ch\u00e1vez and other supporters, the \"Bolivarian Revolution\" seeks to build a mass movement to implement Bolivarianism, popular democracy, economic independence, equitable distribution of revenues, and an end to political corruption in Venezuela. They interpret Bol\u00edvar's ideas from a socialist perspective.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<h2>Hugo Ch\u00e1vez<\/h2>\r\nHugo Ch\u00e1vez, a former paratroop lieutenant-colonel who led an unsuccessful coup d'\u00e9tat in 1992, was elected President in December 1998 on a platform that called for the creation of a \"Fifth Republic,\" a new constitution, a new name (\"the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela\"), and a new set of relations between socioeconomic classes. In 1999, voters approved a referendum on a new constitution and in 2000, re-elected Ch\u00e1vez, also placing many members of his Fifth Republic Movement party in the National Assembly. Supporters of Ch\u00e1vez called the process symbolized by him the Bolivarian Revolution and were organized into different government-funded groups, including the Bolivarian Circles. Ch\u00e1vez's first few months in office were dedicated primarily to constitutional reform, while his secondary focus was on immediately allocating more government funds to new social programs.\r\n\r\nHowever, as a recession triggered by historically low oil prices and soaring international interest rates rocked Venezuela, the shrunken federal treasury provided very little of the resources Ch\u00e1vez required for his promised massive populist programs. The economy, which was still staggering, shrunk by 10% and the unemployment rate increased to 20%, the highest level in since the 1980s.\r\n\r\nCh\u00e1vez sharply diverged from previous administrations' economic policies, terminating their practice of extensively privatizing Venezuela's state-owned holdings, such as the national social security system, holdings in the aluminum industry, and the oil sector. Ch\u00e1vez worked to reduce Venezuelan oil extraction in the hopes of garnering elevated oil prices and, at least theoretically, elevated total oil revenues, thereby boosting Venezuela's severely deflated foreign exchange reserves. He extensively lobbied other OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) countries to cut their production rates as well. As a result of these actions, Ch\u00e1vez became known as a \"price hawk\" in his dealings with the oil industry and OPEC. Ch\u00e1vez also attempted a comprehensive renegotiation of 60- year-old royalty payment agreements with oil giants Philips Petroleum and ExxonMobil. These agreements had allowed the corporations to pay in taxes as little as 1% of the tens of billions of dollars in revenues they were earning from their extraction of Venezuelan oil. Afterwards, Ch\u00e1vez stated his intention to complete the nationalization of Venezuela's oil resources.\r\n\r\nIn April 2002, Ch\u00e1vez was briefly ousted from power in the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'\u00e9tat attempt following popular demonstrations by his opponents, but he was returned to power after two days as a result of demonstrations by poor Ch\u00e1vez supporters in Caracas, as well as actions by the military.\r\n\r\nCh\u00e1vez also remained in power after an all-out national strike that lasted from December 2002 to February 2003, including a strike\/lockout in the state oil company PDVSA. The strike produced severe economic dislocation, with the country's GDP falling 27% during the first four months of 2003, and costing the oil industry $13.3 billion. In the subsequent decade, the government was forced into several currency devaluations. These devaluations have done little to improve the situation of the Venezuelan people who rely on imported products or locally produced products that depend on imported inputs, while dollar-denominated oil sales account for the vast majority of Venezuela's exports. The profits of the oil industry have been lost to \"social engineering\" and corruption, instead of investments needed to maintain oil production.\r\n\r\nCh\u00e1vez survived several further political tests, including an August 2004 recall referendum. He was elected for another term in December 2006 and re-elected for a third term in October 2012. However, he was never sworn in for his third term due to medical complications. Ch\u00e1vez died on March 5, 2013 after a nearly two-year fight with cancer. The presidential election that took place on April 14, 2013, was the first since Ch\u00e1vez took office in 1999 in which his name did not appear on the ballot.\r\n\r\nChavez's ideas, programs, and style form the basis of \"Chavismo,\" a political ideology closely associated with Bolivarianism and socialism of the 21st century, which continued but declined after his death. Internationally, Ch\u00e1vez aligned himself with the Marxist\u2013Leninist governments of Fidel and then Ra\u00fal Castro in Cuba, and the socialist governments of Evo Morales (Bolivia), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua). His presidency was seen as a part of the socialist \"pink tide\" sweeping Latin America. Ch\u00e1vez described his policies as anti-imperialist, being a prominent adversary of the United States's foreign policy as well as a vocal critic of U.S.-supported neoliberalism and laissez-faire capitalism. He described himself as a Marxist. He supported Latin American and Caribbean cooperation and was instrumental in setting up the pan-regional Union of South American Nations, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Bank of the South, and the regional television network TeleSUR.\r\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure\">\r\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure__cont\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"340\"]<img class=\"atom__components__figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1599\/2017\/07\/18195536\/media_35780_medium.jpeg\" alt=\"Hugo Ch\u00e1vez\" width=\"340\" height=\"224\" \/> Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. Ch\u00e1vez holds up a miniature copy of the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution at the 2005 World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre, Brazil.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<div class=\"atom__components__document\"><\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h2>Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/h2>\r\nNicol\u00e1s Maduro has been the President of Venezuela since April 14, 2013, after winning the second presidential election after Ch\u00e1vez's death with 50.61% of the votes against the opposition's candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski, who had 49.12% of the votes. The Democratic Unity Roundtable contested his election as fraudulent,\u00a0and as a violation of the constitution. However, the Supreme Court of Venezuela ruled that under Venezuela's Constitution, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is the legitimate president and was invested as such by the Venezuelan National Assembly.\r\n\r\nBeginning in February 2014, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have protested over high levels of criminal violence, corruption, hyperinflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods due to policies of the federal government. Demonstrations and riots have left over 40 fatalities in the unrest between both Chavistas and opposition protesters, and has led to the arrest of opposition leaders such as Leopoldo L\u00f3pez and Antonio Ledezma. Human rights groups have strongly condemned the arrest of Leopoldo L\u00f3pez.\r\n\r\nIn the 2015 Venezuelan parliamentary election, the opposition gained a majority.\r\n\r\nThe following year, in a July 2016 decree, President Maduro used his executive power to declare a state of economic emergency. The decree could force citizens to work in agricultural fields and farms for 60-day (or longer) periods to supply food to the country. Colombian border crossings have been temporarily opened to allow Venezuelans to purchase food and basic household and health items in Colombia in mid-2016. In September 2016, a study published in the Spanish-language Diario Las Am\u00e9ricas indicated that 15% of Venezuelans are eating \"food waste discarded by commercial establishments.\"\r\n<h3>Attributions<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Venezuela and Chavismo\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>\r\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"Hugo Ch\u00e1vez.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hugo_Chavez\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hugo_Chavez<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\r\n \t<li>\r\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"Venezuela.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Venezuela\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Venezuela<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\r\n \t<li>\r\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"History of Venezuela.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Venezuela\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Venezuela<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\r\n \t<li>\r\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"History of Venezuela (1999-present).\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Venezuela_(1999-present)\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Venezuela_(1999-present)<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\r\n \t<li>\r\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"HugoChavez1823.jpeg.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:HugoChavez1823.jpeg\">https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:HugoChavez1823.jpeg<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikimedia Commons<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","rendered":"<h2 id=\"concept_1630\">38.5.2: Venezuela and Chavismo<\/h2>\n<div class=\"brief\">\n<p>Under the presidency of Hugo Ch\u00e1vez from 1999 to 2013, Venezuela saw sweeping and radical shifts in social policy, marked by a move away from the government officially embracing a free market economy and neoliberal reform principles and a move\u00a0towards the government embracing socialist income redistribution and social welfare programs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Learning Objective<\/h3>\n<p>Summarize the defining characteristics of Chavismo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\n<h3>Key Points<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>With many Venezuelans tired of politics in the country, the 1998 elections had the lowest voter turnout in Venezuelan history, with Hugo Ch\u00e1vez winning the presidency on December 6, 1998 with 56.4% of the popular vote.<\/li>\n<li>Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1999, Ch\u00e1vez focused on enacting social reforms as part of his &#8220;Bolivarian Revolution.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Using record-high oil revenues of the 2000s, his government nationalized key industries, created participatory democratic Communal Councils, and implemented social programs known as the Bolivarian Missions to expand access to food, housing, healthcare, and education.<\/li>\n<li>Venezuela received high oil profits in the mid-2000s and there were improvements in areas such as poverty, literacy, income equality, and quality of life occurring primarily between 2003 and 2007.<\/li>\n<li>At the end of Ch\u00e1vez&#8217;s presidency in the early 2010s, economic actions performed by his government during the preceding decade such as deficit spending and price controls proved to be unsustainable, with Venezuela&#8217;s economy faltering while poverty, inflation, and supply shortages in Venezuela increased.<\/li>\n<li>Ch\u00e1vez died of cancer on March 5, 2013 at the age of 58, and was was succeeded by Nicol\u00e1s Maduro (initially as interim president before he narrowly won the 2013 presidential election).<\/li>\n<li>Maduro continued many of the policies of Ch\u00e1vez, leading to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans protesting over high levels of criminal violence, corruption, hyperinflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods due to policies of the federal government.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox examples\">\n<h3>Key Terms<\/h3>\n<dl class=\"key_terms\">\n<dt><strong>Hugo Ch\u00e1vez<\/strong><\/dt>\n<dd>A Venezuelan politician who served as the 64th President of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. He was also leader of the Fifth Republic Movement from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until 2012. Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1999, he focused on enacting social reforms as part of the Bolivarian Revolution, which is a type of socialist revolution. Using record-high oil revenues of the 2000s, his government nationalized key industries, created participatory democratic Communal Councils, and implemented social programs known as the Bolivarian Missions to expand access to food, housing, healthcare, and education.<\/dd>\n<dt><strong>Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/strong><\/dt>\n<dd>A Venezuelan politician who has been the 65th President of Venezuela since 2013. Previously he served under President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2013 and as Vice President of Venezuela from 2012 to 2013.<\/dd>\n<dt><strong>Chavismo<\/strong><\/dt>\n<dd>A left-wing political ideology that is based on the ideas, programs, and government style associated with the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. It combines elements of socialism, left-wing populism, patriotism, internationalism, bolivarianism, post-democracy, feminism, green politics, and Caribbean and Latin American integration.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<h1>Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela<\/h1>\n<p>The Bolivarian Revolution is a leftist social movement and political process in Venezuela that was led by late Venezuelan president Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, the founder of the Fifth Republic Movement and later the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. The &#8220;Bolivarian Revolution&#8221; is named after Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar, an early 19th-century Venezuelan and Latin American revolutionary leader, prominent in the Spanish American wars of independence in achieving the independence of most of northern South America from Spanish rule. According to Ch\u00e1vez and other supporters, the &#8220;Bolivarian Revolution&#8221; seeks to build a mass movement to implement Bolivarianism, popular democracy, economic independence, equitable distribution of revenues, and an end to political corruption in Venezuela. They interpret Bol\u00edvar&#8217;s ideas from a socialist perspective.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Hugo Ch\u00e1vez<\/h2>\n<p>Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, a former paratroop lieutenant-colonel who led an unsuccessful coup d&#8217;\u00e9tat in 1992, was elected President in December 1998 on a platform that called for the creation of a &#8220;Fifth Republic,&#8221; a new constitution, a new name (&#8220;the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela&#8221;), and a new set of relations between socioeconomic classes. In 1999, voters approved a referendum on a new constitution and in 2000, re-elected Ch\u00e1vez, also placing many members of his Fifth Republic Movement party in the National Assembly. Supporters of Ch\u00e1vez called the process symbolized by him the Bolivarian Revolution and were organized into different government-funded groups, including the Bolivarian Circles. Ch\u00e1vez&#8217;s first few months in office were dedicated primarily to constitutional reform, while his secondary focus was on immediately allocating more government funds to new social programs.<\/p>\n<p>However, as a recession triggered by historically low oil prices and soaring international interest rates rocked Venezuela, the shrunken federal treasury provided very little of the resources Ch\u00e1vez required for his promised massive populist programs. The economy, which was still staggering, shrunk by 10% and the unemployment rate increased to 20%, the highest level in since the 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>Ch\u00e1vez sharply diverged from previous administrations&#8217; economic policies, terminating their practice of extensively privatizing Venezuela&#8217;s state-owned holdings, such as the national social security system, holdings in the aluminum industry, and the oil sector. Ch\u00e1vez worked to reduce Venezuelan oil extraction in the hopes of garnering elevated oil prices and, at least theoretically, elevated total oil revenues, thereby boosting Venezuela&#8217;s severely deflated foreign exchange reserves. He extensively lobbied other OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) countries to cut their production rates as well. As a result of these actions, Ch\u00e1vez became known as a &#8220;price hawk&#8221; in his dealings with the oil industry and OPEC. Ch\u00e1vez also attempted a comprehensive renegotiation of 60- year-old royalty payment agreements with oil giants Philips Petroleum and ExxonMobil. These agreements had allowed the corporations to pay in taxes as little as 1% of the tens of billions of dollars in revenues they were earning from their extraction of Venezuelan oil. Afterwards, Ch\u00e1vez stated his intention to complete the nationalization of Venezuela&#8217;s oil resources.<\/p>\n<p>In April 2002, Ch\u00e1vez was briefly ousted from power in the 2002 Venezuelan coup d&#8217;\u00e9tat attempt following popular demonstrations by his opponents, but he was returned to power after two days as a result of demonstrations by poor Ch\u00e1vez supporters in Caracas, as well as actions by the military.<\/p>\n<p>Ch\u00e1vez also remained in power after an all-out national strike that lasted from December 2002 to February 2003, including a strike\/lockout in the state oil company PDVSA. The strike produced severe economic dislocation, with the country&#8217;s GDP falling 27% during the first four months of 2003, and costing the oil industry $13.3 billion. In the subsequent decade, the government was forced into several currency devaluations. These devaluations have done little to improve the situation of the Venezuelan people who rely on imported products or locally produced products that depend on imported inputs, while dollar-denominated oil sales account for the vast majority of Venezuela&#8217;s exports. The profits of the oil industry have been lost to &#8220;social engineering&#8221; and corruption, instead of investments needed to maintain oil production.<\/p>\n<p>Ch\u00e1vez survived several further political tests, including an August 2004 recall referendum. He was elected for another term in December 2006 and re-elected for a third term in October 2012. However, he was never sworn in for his third term due to medical complications. Ch\u00e1vez died on March 5, 2013 after a nearly two-year fight with cancer. The presidential election that took place on April 14, 2013, was the first since Ch\u00e1vez took office in 1999 in which his name did not appear on the ballot.<\/p>\n<p>Chavez&#8217;s ideas, programs, and style form the basis of &#8220;Chavismo,&#8221; a political ideology closely associated with Bolivarianism and socialism of the 21st century, which continued but declined after his death. Internationally, Ch\u00e1vez aligned himself with the Marxist\u2013Leninist governments of Fidel and then Ra\u00fal Castro in Cuba, and the socialist governments of Evo Morales (Bolivia), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua). His presidency was seen as a part of the socialist &#8220;pink tide&#8221; sweeping Latin America. Ch\u00e1vez described his policies as anti-imperialist, being a prominent adversary of the United States&#8217;s foreign policy as well as a vocal critic of U.S.-supported neoliberalism and laissez-faire capitalism. He described himself as a Marxist. He supported Latin American and Caribbean cooperation and was instrumental in setting up the pan-regional Union of South American Nations, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Bank of the South, and the regional television network TeleSUR.<\/p>\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure\">\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure__cont\">\n<div style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"atom__components__figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1599\/2017\/07\/18195536\/media_35780_medium.jpeg\" alt=\"Hugo Ch\u00e1vez\" width=\"340\" height=\"224\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. Ch\u00e1vez holds up a miniature copy of the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution at the 2005 World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre, Brazil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"atom__components__document\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/h2>\n<p>Nicol\u00e1s Maduro has been the President of Venezuela since April 14, 2013, after winning the second presidential election after Ch\u00e1vez&#8217;s death with 50.61% of the votes against the opposition&#8217;s candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski, who had 49.12% of the votes. The Democratic Unity Roundtable contested his election as fraudulent,\u00a0and as a violation of the constitution. However, the Supreme Court of Venezuela ruled that under Venezuela&#8217;s Constitution, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is the legitimate president and was invested as such by the Venezuelan National Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>Beginning in February 2014, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have protested over high levels of criminal violence, corruption, hyperinflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods due to policies of the federal government. Demonstrations and riots have left over 40 fatalities in the unrest between both Chavistas and opposition protesters, and has led to the arrest of opposition leaders such as Leopoldo L\u00f3pez and Antonio Ledezma. Human rights groups have strongly condemned the arrest of Leopoldo L\u00f3pez.<\/p>\n<p>In the 2015 Venezuelan parliamentary election, the opposition gained a majority.<\/p>\n<p>The following year, in a July 2016 decree, President Maduro used his executive power to declare a state of economic emergency. The decree could force citizens to work in agricultural fields and farms for 60-day (or longer) periods to supply food to the country. Colombian border crossings have been temporarily opened to allow Venezuelans to purchase food and basic household and health items in Colombia in mid-2016. In September 2016, a study published in the Spanish-language Diario Las Am\u00e9ricas indicated that 15% of Venezuelans are eating &#8220;food waste discarded by commercial establishments.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Attributions<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Venezuela and Chavismo\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;Hugo Ch\u00e1vez.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hugo_Chavez\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hugo_Chavez<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;Venezuela.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Venezuela\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Venezuela<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;History of Venezuela.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Venezuela\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Venezuela<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;History of Venezuela (1999-present).&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Venezuela_(1999-present)\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Venezuela_(1999-present)<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;HugoChavez1823.jpeg.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:HugoChavez1823.jpeg\">https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:HugoChavez1823.jpeg<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikimedia Commons<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-4701\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Boundless World History. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Boundless. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/boundless-worldhistory\/\">https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/boundless-worldhistory\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":23437,"menu_order":23,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"Boundless World History\",\"author\":\"Boundless\",\"organization\":\"\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/boundless-worldhistory\/\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by\",\"license_terms\":\"\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-4701","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3228,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/4701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23437"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/4701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5901,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/4701\/revisions\/5901"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3228"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/4701\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=4701"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=4701"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-worldhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=4701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}