You asked for it! Hugo Chavez stood almost 15 years as president of Venezuela, in a time where the biggest country treasure went from 10 dollars per barrel to 110 dollars per barrel. He won his last two elections in incredible contraditory fashion (since all the unbiased polls said otherwise) and in all the vary social/economic statistics you look at, almost all of them got worse. Chavez took over with a very promissing speech. He promissed exactly what Dilma is promissing in doing. No more poverty and no more people in the "poverty line" (less than 1.25 dollar/day). Did he achieve it? No, but things for the very poor vastly improved since the 90s, it trully did. That is not the whole factor though. He claimed to be the president that most spent on the poor (truth), but it isnt so hard when no one else before him did anything. He didnt do more than he should have, he was always looking first for power. It (unfortunatelly) doesnt matter if the very poor people are making 3-4 dollars a day (instead of 1), if all the rest is in a complete shit state and if there are no real oportunities. Hugo took an economy that is solely based on oil and mineral, in a period where these two raw materials immensily grew in value during those 15 years, and wasnt capable of improving the country in any way. Where did it all go? He basically gave them a few percentage of what he could have really done. It is like having 10 candies and only giving 1 to your people, even though you consider yourself a good and kind politician. In a scenario where Venezuela should have taken full advantage of it, Chavez made things worse. The criminal rating absurdly increased and the level of foreign investment declined to almost to nonexisting levels. The middle class lives in horrible conditions (for a middle class) and famous rich people (I dont mean celebs, please) fleed the country. It is good to promote improvements for the mass working class, but it has no point if everything else is gonna to be fucked up! He took all the resources of PDVSA to promote his overpriced (guess why) social works and left them outdated. Now, they are in a very bad situation, almost bankrupted. He left their only big company is a much worse situation then when he took over, even with the immense valorization of petroleum in the same period. The Venezuela (and Argentina, but that is a different discussion) is in deep, deep shape. It doesnt get to the media because nobody cares about them, but Chavez is the main reason why. His exertnal policy of protecting bad figures throughout the world has made Venezuela a "not to go"and "instable" country to any kind of investment, their population has no job or academic oportunities. As much as we would like it not to be, a country needs rich people and a stable infrastructure. You of all people (an intelligent guy living in the thrid world) know how important foreign multinational companies and rich executives is for a country to develop. Venezuelans now have a place to live (which is very important and I give him credit where credit is due) and they leave school knowing how to read/write and how to do basic math operations. Nevertheless, is that really super relevant if you have no one financing University researches nor anyone employing work force? Worse than that (believe me), is the super high inflation and lack of food and energy. Inflation to the point of not being able to open a bank account, can you imagine? It is not as bad as it once was in Brazil (we had around 1800%/year in the 80s) nor Africa (where paper money doesnt even exist), but it is still pretty, prety bad! Their energy demand is at 33% higher than they can deliver, blackouts are more than common. Food is sad, I cant really talk about it as I never, thankfully, passed any necessity, but only who did knows how it feels. Now you ask me, is that all because of Chavez? Yes... Venezuela is in some serious trouble and it is mainly because of him. His need for power made things totally biased and corrupted. There is no free will in Venezuela, you cant public complain about him or any of his 'friends'. He owned every single Media source, he dominated the Legislature and he had strong allies in the Judiciary. How was it called someone who ruled all the power espheres of a nation? I guess they call it a free man now... The economic problems were also all his fault. He promoted a dubtful and controversial external policy, totally anti-capitalistm and anti-USA. If you live in a country without all the resources needed to survive and thrive, any dumbass can see this is suicidal. You cant public announce help to dictatorship and rule out any agreement with the USA just because you dont want you, this is not some personal vendeta. You have always to look at what is best for your own country, and that he rarely did. There are two ways to screw up, one doing what Cuba did (no USA at all) and the other by what Argentina did (accepting everything they impose). Every situation must be taken care individually, like Brazil (to take a South American as example) does, sometimes their ideas are good for both countries and sometimes it isnt. Make deal in the ones that do help your people, simple as that. He also basically nationalized all the possible areas. That is a controversial debate though, because nationalizing it doesnt actually mean a bad thing. However, if anything about South America is true, is that our goverments are utter shit administrators. Any public service here is ineficient. What once were good structured companies and services (even if doing well to the very rich), now are complete broke and burocratic things. After his 14 years, we have a Venezuela with no freedom and no growth perspective. People have a better education (better than Brazil), but they have no good future in life. What is the matter to do all of this if there will be no job? In Brazil, less educated people can at least find a job at McDonald's or at one of the many constructions around here (guess why so many). It is a very sad situation, where it is easy to scre things up, but very hard to solve and put things back on track! EDIT 1: In resume, he had all the characteristics of a tyranny. He did improve those aspects of life, but he owned everything and censured everyone. Never really bothered in really helping South America, just worried with his power maintenance and anger towards USA. Ultimately turning things much, much, much more worse. EDIT 2: I honestly think someone will take over and install a military dictatorship in Venezuela. Chavez will be the one who pavement the way for that happening. The fact civilians all love him doesnt mean anything and history is there to show it. EDIT 3: You know my way of writing quite well, I usually repeat myself. However, this is such a hard topic to keep your ideas clear, that I needed to be. I dont even know if I expressed myself good. Did I?
