Insider
International Politics
Venezuela: a timeline of the
crisis
A growing political crisis is causing hyperinflation, lack of food,
medicine and electricity; it’s a real danger to the Venezuelans
causing crime and starvation.
outlets for
’offending the gov-
ernment’.
Many factors have
been involved in the
current Venezuelan
crisis, but perhaps
the start was in the
1980s when oil prices
decreased dramati-
cally on a global
scale. Venezuela re-
lied greatly on the oil
industry and so its
economy diminished
and inflation soared.
The democratic lead-
er at the time, Perez,
sought help from the
International Mone-
tary fund (made of
189 countries and
headquartered in
Washington DC) for
finances in 1989,
causing major riots in
the country.
In 1992 Hugo Chavez
failed to illegally and
violently take control
of the country from
Perez, however
gained national fame.
Corruption allega-
tions against Perez
meant socialist
Chavez was elected
president in Decem-
ber 1998.
While many Venezue-
lans were in support
Currently the presi-
dent is Nicolás Ma-
duro, elected in
April 2013 by a nar-
row margin. He has
arguably been the
most damaging fac-
tor to Venezuela,
acting as a dictator
and not allowing
any new president,
like Juan Guaidó, to
assume the role,
despite the majority
supporting him.
of Chavez as their presi-
dent for many years,
after fighting for the
poor to have more privi-
leges, he villainized the
US during his presiden-
cy which increased ten-
sions between the two
countries.
The U.S. has also op-
posed Venezuela impris-
oning political oppo-
nents and Chavez tak-
ing control of Venezue-
la’s supreme court in
2004. He also passed
laws controlling local
media that punished
Venezuelans
made to lie
on the street
by police af-
ter looting.
“We need to
reduce ex-
treme con-
sumption to
achieve a
point of
equilibrium
between
supply and a
fair price.” -
Nicolás
Maduro
It is likely Venezue-
la’s problems will
only get worse un-
der the rule of Mau-
ro, a man who said
“We need to reduce
extreme consump-
tion to achieve a
point of equilibrium
between supply and
a fair price.” instead
of acknowledging
the real issue of
lack of food and re-
fusing to accept
help from other
countries and chari-
ties.
Currently, Venezue-
lan citizens are
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