The Scoop

        Venezuela’s political situation has been escalating pretty fast due to the socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, due to hyperinflation, power cuts, and shortages of medicine and food. This all led to the discontent of many Venezuelans who have left their country in the past years. But how did this crisis begin?

 

 

        Nicolás Maduro was elected in April 2013 after the death of his socialist mentor, Hugo Chávez. Since this year, Venezuela started to decline, during his first term as a president, the country’s economy went into freefall. Years later, in May 2018, he was re-elected with elections that weren’t recognized by Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly. As they claim, the elections weren’t fair or legal, so the presidency is vacant. Following this line, and citing articles 233 and 333 of Venezuela's constitution, the legislature says that in such cases, the head of the National Assembly takes over as acting president, 35-year-old Juan Guaidó declared himself as acting president on 23 January. He declared that he would assume the powers of the executive branch from there onwards., which caused Maduro to say that he was the constitutional president and would remain so.

 

        After Guaidó declared he would take over the executive powers, US president, Donald Trump, officially recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela in a tweet that said: “The citizens of Venezuela have suffered for too long at the hands of the illegitimate Maduro regime. Today, I have officially recognized the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as the Interim President of Venezuela”. Besides the US, many other countries support Guaidó, such as Canada, Argentina, Chile, Germany, France, Hawaii, Peru, Honduras, Costa Rica, Belgium, Ecuador, Panama, United Kingdom, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Poland, and of course, Colombia; but there are still countries that support Maduro, such as Russia, China, Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

 

 

        Venezuela´s crisis started a long time ago; however, the actual president and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, are the targets of all Venezuelan’s anger. Their social policies have been in power since 1999, bringing the country into a higher rate of inequality that has been fueled by hyperinflation. According to a study held by the opposition-controlled National Assembly, the annual inflation rate reached 1,300,000% in the 12 months to November 2018. By the end of that year, prices were doubling every 19 days on average, increasing the struggles many Venezuelans face to afford basic items such as food and toiletries. In the attempt to make things “better”, the government looped five zeroes off the old “strong bolivar” currency and gave it a new name, the “sovereign bolivar”; which is part of an economic plan that according to the government is the “magic formula” to help Venezuela’s battered economy recover. However, many economic changes, like wage increases, lead to questions concerning the effectiveness of the idea.

 

 

        Now, how have Venezuelans reacted? I think we all know the answer: they are migrating. They chose to start walking leaving their country behind. According to United Nations figures, three million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014 when the economic and politic crisis started to arise. As we know, they have migrated mostly to their neighbor country, Colombia, where many of them move to Ecuador, Chile, Peru, or some others stay here; preferring to live in poor conditions rather than go back to their homes in Venezuela. Isn’t it sad?