VenEconomy // ...and then Hugo Chavez came up against the economy

For more than 11 years President Hugo Chavez was able to impose his aggressive political agenda on the country. With the gift of a Pied Piper, he has been able, for years, to gain the support of millions of Venezuelans, above all among the very poor, who embraced his mirage of a class struggle. Thus Chavez earned enough points in his favor to just sit back and enjoy his sway over the country and impose his will on all the branches of government as well as the country's productive and financial sector.

During this period, Chavez split the population in two and implemented, as government policy, a system of segregation and persecution of vast sectors in the country. He also did everything in his power to reduce private production to its minimum expression using strong-arm tactics, stealing land, companies and properties.

To complete his evil designs, the battalion of followers led by Chavez ensured the collapse of the public sector, using incompetence, negligence, corruption and, above all, mismanagement and waste of all the oil money that has poured into the country, as their tools. The ills of PDVSA have also added up, with a marked decline in production capacity and widespread corruption. The most obvious example of the latter being all the cases of rotting food imported by PDVAL and the oil spills that have not been handled skillfully or diligently. What's more, despite rising oil prices that have averaged $70.03/bbl in 2010 -- almost 23% higher than in 2009 -- PDVSA has not managed to increase its earnings. The end result: further deterioration of an already misguided foreign exchange policy.

Chavez' wrongheaded focus on imposing communism also led to a serious and sustained electric-power crisis, with its harmful repercussions on domestic production and quality of life of the man on the street.

The government's contradictory policies have led to a continuous and rapid drop in the GDP, and high inflation, at a rate that has already reached 14.5% so far in 2010, causing what may end up being one of the most serious recessions in Venezuelan history.

Nevertheless, Chavez' political agenda inevitably came up against the economy, and things do not seem to be going his way.

Most public opinion polls show falling levels of approval as to how Hugo Chavez is managing the country. According to one of the most recent ones, in which Consultores 21 polled 1,500 cases in 66 towns in the country on June 4, 59% of those polled feel the Chavez government is bad and most of them consider that the country's main problem is the economic situation.

The worst piece of news for the President, however, is that more than 55% of those polled hold him responsible for the country's problems and feel that he is incapable of solving them.

His response to reality is that of all despots: Repression, control, and more control.