Venezuelan Socialists Voted Out during Mid-Term Elections

According to Venezuela’s National Election Council, the center-right Democratic Unity Roundtable gained 99 seats in the National Assembly, ending decades of socialist rule, according to BBC News. The opposition would ultimately need 116 seats in office to pass laws and call a referendum on President Nicolas Maduro’s political future. The president’s term limit ends in April 2019.

According to Venezuela’s National Election Council, the center-right Democratic Unity Roundtable gained 99 seats in the National Assembly, ending decades of socialist rule, according to BBC News. The opposition would ultimately need 116 seats in office to pass laws and call a referendum on President Nicolas Maduro’s political future. The president’s term limit ends in April 2019.

Maduro struggles to prop up an economy on the verge of collapse while facing an opposition at odds with his agenda. The South American nation suffered through 68-percent inflation, and citizens struggle to purchase basic items such as toilet paper and diapers. Venezuela imports 70 percent of its consumer goods, but the government struggles to finance the imports, and the main reason lies in the low-price oil market.

Fellow OPEC member Saudi Arabia instigated the price drop, flooding the world market with cheap crude to place competitors out of business. Maduro begged the Kingdom to slow production, but his pleas fell on deaf ears, and poorer OPEC nations like Venezuela suffered as a result. Maduro traveled to China and Russia to seek funding, but the idea of Venezuela begging for money would have been a foreign concept when the country prospered under a higher-priced energy market. Venezuela holds the world’s largest oil reserves, but its oil-driven economy places the economy in peril when oil prices tumble.

The amount of U.S. dollars in the reserve system dwindled, forcing many Venezuelans to use the black market, and foreign companies fear a lack of access to dollars within the Venezuelan system. The overall instability scares away investors, but the government’s authoritarian response to the crisis proves equally troubling. Maduro fired former Finance and Planning Minister Jorge Giordani, who served as adviser to the late Hugo Chavez, for criticizing the government’s failure to diversify the economy.  Numerous political opponents are in jail for voicing opposition.

The state’s crackdown sparked protests and international condemnation, and all signs indicate that Maduro’s political days are numbered as he grows more isolated. Although the socialist government retains control of various municipalities, the opposition will create a roadblock at every turn, and officials face growing discontentment among the populace. In addition, Venezuela will lose key Argentinian ally President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner upon the election of center-right president-elect Mauricio Marci, who advocates booting Venezuela out of a vital trade bloc for jailing dissenters.