Republic of Venezuela

The Republic of Venezuela was an American-aligned neoliberal regime based in South America. It was succeeded by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

History

Despite having the reputation of being South America's richest nation, the lower classes generally fared unwell. For example, in the couple decades previous to 1998, the Republic of Venezuela's GDP growth rates and per capita income actually decreased steadily:

‘From 1960 to 1980, per capita income grew by 91.5 per cent, or an average of 3.3 per cent a year. Over the next 20 years, from 1980 to 2000, it grew by just 5.7 per cent, an average of 0.3 per cent a year. This was the worst economic long-term economic growth failure in Latin America for at least a century.’ As a result, the winning Left candidates during the 2000s ran explicitly against the neo-liberal policies, which were associated with the growth failure. For example, Venezuela was the fastest-growing economy in Latin America between 1920 and 1975, with a per capita GDP growth rate of four per cent. By 1977, Venezuela was by far the richest country in Latin America with a GDP per capita 2.1 times the regional average. However, between 1978 and 1998 (when Chavez was elected) GDP per capita declined by 21.5 per cent.

— Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection,

In contrast with the sustained real average annual economic growth of 4.8 during the 1960s and 4.0 during the 1970s, the economy shrank at an annual rate of −0.16% during the 1980s and grew at only 2.4% during the 1990s. Real GDP per capita dropped to $5,654 by 1999, and Venezuela's income per capita was actually 27% lower than two decades earlier. So the growth of the Venezuelan GDP was already in decline in the late 1990s and the nation had seen wild swings in GDP growth since the late 1970s. Oil prices fell in unison with the GDP since its economy is so closely tied to oil revenue (which is also partly why its GDP fluctuation over the past four decades has been the way that it is) regardless of the administration's own political orientation; the republic has had to rely excessively on oil revenue for its economic growth. In comparison, the UMS's GDP per capita in 1992 was higher than the Venezuelan one (and if one were to include all Western hemisphere nations, then there were at least four nations ahead of it in GDP per capita in 1992). In terms of absolute GDP: at least Argentina, Brazil, and of course most of North America were still bigger than Venezuela in 1992. Even the liberal Public Radio International noted that neoliberalism did nothing to make their economy run more efficiently; inflation actually worsened. The country likewise suffered illiteracy, poor healthcare, poverty, and other economic disadvantages before the twenty-first century.

During the Punto Fijo period, Venezuela's corrupt system of overpowered parties fundamentally undermined the ‘democratic’ institutions’ neutrality; the two major parties controlled almost every appointment. The military, the judiciary, the state administration and electoral bodies were subject to intense politicization: appointments depended on party contacts, and the elections were hopelessly rigged. Civil society organizations such as unions or NGOs would be brought into the partisan system by plying them with money. Latinobarómetro Report (1995–2015) found that only 11% of Venezuelans in 1997 believed that their elections were legitimate, with 83% of them believing them to be fraudulent. This is in stark contrast to the situation of 2013.