Skip to main content

Chavez's Legacy

It's been three years since Nicolas Maduro went on national TV to announce the tragic death of beloved revolutionary leader, Hugo Chavez. The size and intensity of the outpouring that followed would show the world, in some measure, the huge impact Chavez had had both in Venezuela and around the world.

When Hugo Chavez won his first election as Venezuela’s President in 1998, it was against a backdrop of a deep economic and social crisis.

Venezuela's economic performance was one of the worst in the world. Its economy per head had been falling for over 25 consecutive years. Living standards had been driven down, and just a few years before Chavez came to office over 40 percent lived in extreme poverty.

This despite the vast oil wealth that the country possessed. In the late 1950s Venezuela's income per person was on a par with Britain. That era came crashing down thanks to misrule and, later, the implementation of neoliberal policies by the country's political elite, which failed the Venezuelan people. As a result Venezuela’s income per head was lower in 1998 than it had been in 1960, in real terms.

Popular revolts against this decline were brutally repressed. In one incident alone - the Caracazo - up to 3,000 died and the constitution was suspended.

Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution" — named after Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar — began to reverse these decades of failure, and after the state oil company was taken under full government control, following a coup attempt and failed oil strike in 2002-2003, the social improvements accelerated.

Poverty reduction and inequality

Arguably the most impressive achievements of the era of progressive change that begun with Chavez's election is poverty-reduction programs, which have seen startling results.

When Chavez arrived in office in 1998, Venezuelan poverty levels were at 44 percent. The Revolution has reduced this substantially to 27 percent today. Whilst extreme poverty has declined from 20% to 5.4%, according to figures released earlier this week.

Inequality has also been tackled. Using the internationally recognized measurement, the Gini coefficient where zero represents perfect equality, inequality fell from 0.48 at the time of Chavez's election to 0.38 today.

Tackling a humanitarian crisis

Free-market extremism devastated the living standards of the Venezuelan people. One clear example is the widespread hunger that afflicted the oil rich nation. In 1998, 21 percent of the population suffered from undernourishment according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations definition. Today that figure is just 2 percent.

Likewise, the number of underweight children at the end of the pre-Chavez was 5.3 percent, a figure that had halved by 2012. Today 95.4 percent of Venezuelans eat three times per day according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE). Social programs providing subsidized food, free meals, and free school dinners have played a significant role in eradicating hunger and child malnutrition. Access to drinking water has significantly improved too, from 80 percent in 1998 to 96 percent today.

Enriching lives through public services

In the 15 years prior to Hugo Chavez, from 1983 to 1998, just 37 percent of the state budget went on social investment. In the 15 years of the since Hugo Chavez initiated the Bolivarian Revolution that figure has shot up to 61 percent.

As a result, Venezuela has risen substantially in the UN's Human Development Index.

Increased social investment led to huge improvements in education, for example illiteracy was eradicated and Venezuela now has one of the world's highest proportion of people attending university.

Healthcare was also a major beneficiary of this investment. Over 80% of Venezuelans have accessed the nation's now-free public health system with some 700 million consultations via the more than 10,000 new free health centers. As a result, infant mortality in revolutionary Venezuela has dropped by a third and this effort is estimated to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Sharing the economic gains

The reversal of a 25-year economic decline has seen employment opportunities flourish. Unemployment was 14.5 percent in 1998, a figure which, today, has been reduced by two thirds, with over 4 million jobs since 1999. Employment in the formal sector has risen considerably to 60 percent. Whilst in retirement, many more have a dignified life, with the number of people accessing a state pension increasing from 387,000 pre-Chavez, to over 2.5 million today.

Backed by the people

All this progressive change has been backed in election after election. Since Hugo Chávez took office in 1999, Venezuela has held 18 national elections with the coalition of supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution winning all but one. This is a greater number of elections than were held during the previous 40 years of Venezuelan democracy, following the fall of the dictatorship in 1958.

Source:



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Oct. 7 Reports Implode: Beheaded Babies, NY Times Scandal, & More

Glenn Greenwald    

Israel’s Descent Into Madness & the Holocaust Comparison

BreakThrough News   Rania Khalek was joined by Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany and associate professor at Koc University in Istanbul, to discuss Israel’s descent into genocidal fascism. Prof. Amar addresses whether it’s useful to make Holocaust and Nazi comparisons and the real reason behind the West’s unshakeable loyalty attitude when it comes to Israel’s barbarism.   

Zionist and US imperialist criminals are about to grab the natural gas off shore Gaza

globinfo freexchange   As the genocide against Palestinians of Gaza is about to be completed with an act of unprecedented brutality by the Zionists and butcher Netanyahu through the bombardment of about 1.4 million civilians in Rafah, it seems that they have already set their next primary goal. Which, in short, is to grab the natural gas resources off shore Gaza, together with their US imperialist buddies whose contribution to the genocide has been undoubtedly critical.     As already reported , in 2007, Hamas came to power and Israel launched an offensive on Gaza Strip, leaving behind 1,400 dead Palestinians, but taking with it the gas fields. Within a year, Israel announced the discovery of the Leviathan natural gas field, which did include Gaza's riches, valued at 453 billion dollars. But Gazans have been denied around 47 billion dollars in revenue. As for Tel Aviv, it's gunning to become a new hub. At that moment in time, that is 2022, Russian oil and gas were sanctioned.

Neocon Queen Victoria Nuland Ends Her Reign: Exposing a Catastrophic Career

Glenn Greenwald    

Το σκάσιμο της φούσκας Μητσοτάκη με νέα επίσημη χρεοκοπία και οριστικό τέλος της μεταπολίτευσης

του system failure   Τα αποτελέσματα των εκλογών της 25ης Ιουνίου ήταν λίγο-πολύ αναμενόμενα όσον αφορά τις πρώτες θέσεις με βάση και τα αποτελέσματα της πρώτης κάλπης του Μαίου. Αν συμπεριλάβουμε και το ποσοστό της αναμενόμενης αποχής, δεν μας έδωσαν κάποια ιδιαίτερη έκπληξη. Αυτό όμως που φαίνεται να αιφνιδίασε ακόμα και το συστημικό κατεστημένο, είναι η είσοδος των δύο υπερσυντηρητικών, ακροδεξιών κομμάτων Νίκη και Σπαρτιάτες, με το τελευταίο να έχει ξεκάθαρες διασυνδέσεις με τον πρώην Χρυσαυγίτη, Ηλία Κασιδιάρη. Παρά τη μεγάλη νίκη Μητσοτάκη, οι μιντιακοί ινστρούχτορες της καθεστωτικής προπαγάνδας εμφανίστηκαν σε γενικές γραμμές "μουδιασμένοι" και αυτό οφείλεται στο γεγονός ότι το συστημικό κατεστημένο (δηλαδή τα μεγάλα οικονομικά συμφέροντα που ελέγχουν και το σύνολο των μεγάλων ΜΜΕ πανελλαδικής εμβέλειας), πέτυχε μόνο έναν από τους τέσσερις μεγάλους στόχους που είχε θέσει εξ'αρχής. Μιλώντας με ποδοσφαιρικούς όρους, ουσιαστικά έχασε με σκορ 3-1.   Ο μεγάλος στόχος πο

Τυχαία γεγονότα στην τριτοκοσμική μπανανία των Βαλκανίων

failed evolution   1) Συμβαίνει το μεγαλύτερο σιδηροδρομικό δυστύχημα στην ιστορία της χώρας. 2) Γίνεται αστραπιαία επιχείρηση μοντάζ των συνομιλιών του σταθμάρχη από μηχανισμό του καθεστώτος, πριν ακόμα φτάσει στα χέρια των αρχών, προκειμένου να αποδοθεί η τραγωδία αποκλειστικά σε ανθρώπινο λάθος και να βγουν από το κάδρο οι πολιτικές ευθύνες ανώτατων κυβερνητικών αξιωματούχων. 3) Αναπαράγεται το παραποιημένο υλικό αστραπιαία από ναυαρχίδα της καθεστωτικής προπαγάνδας. 4) Τοποθετείται επικεφαλής στην επιτροπή-παρωδία πρωτοπαλίκαρο του καθεστώτος Μητσοτάκη που εργάζονταν παλιά στην ίδια αυτή ναυαρχίδα. 5) Η επιτροπή κλείνει άρον-άρον την υπόθεση αποκλείοντας ουσιώδεις μάρτυρες που είχαν προειδοποιήσει επανειλημμένα τον αρμόδιο υπουργό για τον κίνδυνο μεγάλου δυστυχήματος. Σταματάει έτσι και η όποια σε βάθος διερεύνηση για την τσιμεντοποίηση του χώρου και την απόπειρα συγκάλυψης της τραγωδίας.  

The Shadowy, Intelligence-Linked Group Driving the US Towards War With Iran

"United Against Nuclear Iran does not miss an opportunity to try to bring the United States closer to a military conflict with Iran. And on the other side of the equation, they also have worked very hard to oppose efforts to de-escalate the U.S.-Iran relationship."   by Alan Macleod   Part 7 - A Lesson From History   The history of Iran has been intimately intertwined with the United States since at least 1953 when Washington orchestrated a successful coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had refused U.S. demands to stamp out Communist influences in his country and had nationalized the nation’s oil. The U.S. installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a puppet ruler. An unpopular and authoritarian ruler, the Shah was overthrown in the Revolution of 1979. Since then, it has become a target for regime change, and its nuclear program is something of an obsession in the West. Often orchestrated by UANI officials while they were in government, the U.S. has carried

How the CIA oversees the Ukraine proxy war on Russia

Geopolitical Economy Report   Several reports in mainstream US media outlets show how the CIA has helped to direct the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and played a role in causing the conflict in the first place. Ben Norton examines the evidence.   Related: Confirmed: US imperialists wanted to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine since at least 2019

Israel Carries Out Most Sadistic Massacre, Opens Fire On Gaza Aid Convoy

Richard Medhurst  

The real reason behind TikTok ban

Glenn Greenwald /  Richard Medhurst