Venezuela’s woes

President Maduro needs to think less about ideology and more about saving his country.

After publishing no economic data for a year, the Venezuelan government finally admitted last week what had become obvious — the economy of the country with the world’s largest oil reserves and dependent on oil for its well-being is a basket case.

A report by the central bank showed that Venezuela’s inflation rate was 141 percent in the first nine months of 2015, the highest in the world, and that the economy had shrunk 4.5 percent during that time.

Not in the report, but published elsewhere, the unofficial exchange rate for the Venezuelan bolivar has risen to 832 to the dollar, up from 190 two years ago.

An economist for the British bank Barclays forecast that Venezuela’s exports will total $27 billion this year, down from $75 billion two years ago due to the falling price of oil, which provides 96 percent of the OPEC member’s foreign income.

It is widely believed that Venezuela will have to default on its foreign debt, although President Nicholas Maduro has insisted otherwise.

What it has come to for average Venezuelans is a shortage of food, consumer goods and medicines, long lines at the stores to buy what little is on the shelves and a simmering anger at a government that has added to oil woes by mismanaging the economy since the days of Hugo Chavez.

Chavez, encouraged by his mentor Fidel Castro, pushed Venezuela toward Cuba’s failed economic model by nationalizing broad sectors of the economy and increasing state control.

It did not matter so much when oil was $100 a barrel, but now that oil is below $30, the bill has come due.

Last week, Maduro, who took over after his mentor Chavez died in 2013, declared an “economic emergency” giving him wider powers to intervene in the economy. Until now he has appeared more interested in the fate of socialism and the Socialist Party than addressing problems.

In December, angry Venezuelans tossed out the Socialist majority in the National Assembly and voted in a twothirds “supermajority” for an opposition coalition, giving them the numbers to override Maduro on any issue.

But just before handing over power, the Socialists voted 13 new judges to the Supreme Court, then the new court ousted three newly-elected opposition assembly members, which provisionally took away the supermajority. It’s Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Houston, of course, has deep ties to Venezuela, due primarily to the oil industry; it was our city’s fourth largest trading partner in 2014, with nearly $13 billion worth of commerce, according to the Greater Houston Partnership.

So it is not as a totally disinterested party that we advise President Maduro to think less about ideology and more about saving his country from economic disaster.

We urge him to work with the National Assembly to pull the country through this difficult time, which experts say will require such painful measures as ending price controls, freeing the currency and undoing much of Chavez’s work, although not, we hope all his programs for the poor. They were a response to a long history of social inequality and neglect by Venezuela’s ruling class. To the extent that Maduro can preserve that part of Chavez’s legacy without breaking what’s left of the bank, we support him.