Chavez Gets Serious

 

Hugo Chavez has so far triumphed over all his adversaries. His domestic opposition has made one mistake after another and rendered itself almost irrelevant. The United States has failed completely in its attempts to isolate him and the high oil price has given him the resources with which to spread his influence far outside Venezuela's borders. The anti-american left worldwide reveres him.

Having just won his third presidential election in a row, Chavez now appears to have decided to go directly for a socialist state, which means that he may be facing his first truly formidable opponent - economic reality. Venezuela already has the dubious distinction of being below Cuba, Byelorus and Libya in the Heritage Foundation's economic freedom rankings. For all the country's oil wealth, it ranks 96th among the world's countries for GDP per capita at purchasing power parity, meaning that its citizens have a real annual income that is about a third of what a Maltese citizen can aspire to. This is not likely to improve during Chavez's third term in office, particularly if the pause in the rise of the oil price turns out to be something more serious than that.