Venezuelan economy in shambles ... cliff-hanging parliamentary election

Post & Courier: When we last looked in on President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela he was fuming because departing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe had the nerve to give the Organization of American States documentary proof of Venezuela's support of the narco-terrorist FARC organization in his country.

Mr. Chavez threatened war. He was also still upset about the US Treasury Department declaring in 2008 that the two top intelligence officials in the Chavez government, along with a recent Interior minister, were guilty of arming, abetting and funding FARC. So Mr. Chavez proclaimed that a US diplomat, who truthfully related this fact in answer to a question from the Senate, was unwelcome in Venezuela.

More recently, he has accused his political opposition of sabotaging Venezuela's electrical grid, which has malfunctioned since he nationalized it. The Wall Street Journal reports other nationalized industries have recently experienced a string of costly accidents, probably caused by mismanagement. "We are facing a wave of sabotage, I have no doubt," said the President. An electrical engineer who revealed unfriendly thoughts about Mr. Chavez on Twitter is under arrest for inciting others to kill the President.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chavez has had the bones of Venezuela's founding hero, Simon Bolivar, exhumed for DNA studies. Some think he wants to claim descent from The Liberator, others that he wants to prove that Bolivar was murdered by US agents. He sees one plot after another against him.

The reasonable explanation for all these strange goings-on -- if the word "reasonable" can be applied to a man such as Hugo Chavez -- is that he faces an economy in shambles and a cliff-hanging parliamentary election on Sunday.

Those circumstances might similarly explain his decisions to jail several dozen political opponents, drive prominent media and financial leaders into exile and shut down any media operations that don't toe the government line.

Venezuela's economy is expected to contract by 11% over this year and next -- the worst performance in South America, by far -- according to The Economist, all the while experiencing double-digit inflation and ever- tightening rationing.

Earlier this month, the government even introduced a Cuba-like rationing card. It is called, with perfect irony, the "Good Life Card."

Yet none of this is expected to deliver the opposition a majority in Venezuela's congress. Mr. Chavez, despite -- or because of? -- his lack of emotional balance, has firmly gripped the reins of power.

That means Venezuela, due to Mr. Chavez' increasingly irrational leadership, is going from bad to worse.