Understanding Venezuela's 2016

After the recent trounce of the socialist government in Venezuela in the National Assembly elections, several of my foreign friends have asked me about the repercussions and implications the astounding results have for 2016, given the severe crisis the country has been for the past years. Some call it a devastating night, some call it the first ray of light. I call it: the greatest test in the country's history.

To understand politics in Venezuela, one must understand basic politics in other democracies and add a little tweaks here and there. School teaches us that in most democracies, governments have three branches of power: executive, legislative and judicial. This approach is a bit dull and confusing, so the simplest way to do it is by using the famous three brothers analogy, which I will use in this article. 

Imagine you have a family with three brothers. We'll label them as oldest, middle and youngest brother. The reason there are three is that they can cancel out one another, kind of like rock-paper-scissors. 

The three branches of government: Youngest brother, Oldest brother and middle brother

The middle child is the judicial power. Normally he gets overlooked by his oldest and youngest brother. The judicial power is comprised by a supreme court and inferior courts. Its job is to verify everyone is "following the rules", including the older (legislative) and younger brother (executive).

The oldest child is the legislative power. He is the most experienced and wise of the brothers and he's the one who sets the rules (laws). At times he is overshadowed by the youngest brother, because he takes a lot of time to set the rules, especially if the amount of seats in the assembly (or congress) is insufficient to "get things done". The most efficient set up for the oldest child is to have 2/3 of the seats represented by a party.

The youngest child is the executive power, and just like the being the youngest, he is the spoiled one, or for that matter, the one that gets most attention by everyone. Originally, the constitution made him the "little" brother in order to diminish his power in comparison with the middle (judicial) and older (legislative), but more importantly, to stay away from the monarchy government. However, the executive power, namely the president, has grown in power due to all the attention and popularity he gets. After all, he is seen as the face of the country. IE: Putin in Russia, Obama in the US, and so on.

The idea is that the three brothers are independent from each other and should work in favor of the country and not for themselves. However just like sometimes brothers don't cooperate between them to help the family, something similar happens with government branches.

Having that said, to understand the situation in Venezuela we have to build a bit of context.

Marco Perez Jimenez is regareded by some as the best president Venezuela has had, in terms of national improvement, country infrastructure evolution and first world mindset.

After deposing of dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez in 1958, Venezuela entered the so called 4th republic, which was an almost 40 year period in which the two most important parties split all powers. We'll call them the white party and the green party. Other minor parties were skimming around, like the orange, yellow and the socialist parties, but their participation was null. During this period, the economy of the country was somewhat erratic, good for a few years, then bad another few, then good again, then bad again. Most historians agree that while Perez Jimenez was a dictator, he was on track to establish Venezuela as a first world country, had he kept in office. Since busted, the country in essence began a gradual-slow but steady walk on losing track of Perez Jimenez path, and as years went by, it appeared that Venezuela was headed closer to become a third world country, than the world super power Perez Jimenez had envisioned. This was backed up by countless cases of corruption, unsolved legal cases and the unexisting appearance of a "new light" to guide the car back to the track where it was, heading for glory instead of misery. The people of Venezuela became increasingly frustrated with both the white and green parties, and that's when Chavez came into power, winning an election by captivating the population and by promising to slay any remainings of the white and green parties, who had been deceiving the country for 40 years. Dissappointed as they were, venezuelans voted in three elections to give Chavez's socialist party complete power of all branches of the government. To further extent, Chavez created two more branches, which he called the electoral branch, and the moral branch, both of them filled with socialist party members. 

Chavez got to power by bringing hope to the people, or at least by telling them there was hope.

For over fifteen years, the white and green parties were diminised to the point of their almost complete erradication, as the government held a stronger grip in the branches of power. However the last two years after Chavez passing away and Maduro becoming the president, has seen Venezuela go through the worst crisis imaginable in the country in its history. The most calling aspects of it are:

• Shortage of products, including basic products (food, health, hyginie), which has generated countless (and useless) controls to access the few available products, at ridiculous prices. 
• Hyperinflation, which the Central Bank stopped posting economic indicators a while ago.
• Currency exchange control with four different prices to obtain US Dollars, and none of them being easily accessible by the population, opening the door for a 1000% more expensive US Dollar obtainable in the black market
• Insecurity and crime rates soaring, with the Department of State and Justice also stopped posting crime indicators a while ago.

This whole mess got into a huge boiler and boiled on December 6 last year, where the population voted in 112 seats of 165 possible to a coallition formed by the all the opposition parties to the government. So how did this happen ? Well if one looks at it objectively, it's basically the same story that brought Chavez into power in the 1998 election, without the fact that back then, there were no shortages and there weren't any hyperinflation indicators. There was a currecy exchange control that had been recently modified, but it wasn't as bad as the current one; and insecurity, well... that theme has always been an issue in Caracas since say, the 80s. In essence, the same impulse that manifested by people being fed up with the past, generated a vote for "something different". Note that I wrote "something different", and I didn't write "something new". 

Lawyer Henry Ramos Allup is the new president of the National Assembly. He has been a long time white party deputy. He is well respected and well educated in Venezuela's law and politics. Some people refer to him as a "good ol' fox" due to his quick deliver. Others consider him "old-school", "more of the same" and other similar qualifications.  

Some analysts call this impulse "grounded-vote" (as in, you are grounded, so you have no other choice).

So where does this "grounded-vote" take Venezuela?

The next months will definitely be crucial and the margin of error is minimum, due to the desperate situation the population lives on a daily basis. The older brother has the complicated job of reformulating the rules, resetting the rules, or creating new rules; whichever posture results in a benefit for the country. Add to this that sadly, the most important demographic of the country (recent graduates, young executives) have only one thing in their minds: migrate. This means, that the more capable force of the population is deserting the country and leaving the less experienced and less qualified people to run the country (no offense, but it's true). And let's face: for more than 50 years, Venezuela has proved to be not so good at managing themselves, while having experienced and qualified people running the country. So what can be expected if there is less ?

After barely digesting their astounding victory, the opposition has yet to lay down a plan of the urgent measures that have to be decided within the next months to reactivate (more like, resucitate) the country. There are several censorship issues, several prisoners of the government who are asking for amnesty, and so on. I myself am completely convinced the country right now needs three things:

1) Dismantle the currency exchange control system.

It has been proven three times in Venezuela's history (and additional times in other countries), that currency exchange controls simply DO NOT work. It doesn't matter if it's a band system (hello, Great British Pound 1992?), a fixed system (hello, Zimbabwe?), you name it. To surpress and asfixiate the current flow of supply and demand for foreign currency, does nothing good to the economy of the country.

The currency exchange system must be dismantled. The sooner the better.

2) Reactivate local production and distribution of goods.

When you have a country that produces trillions in electronic technology and shipyars, or with an economy so diverse you don't know where to build your next artificial island, then you can consider importing goods. Otherwise, you must incentive local production of goods. There is simply not enough for the population and this has to end right now. Imports are an alternative and another way to supply the country, but cannot be the cornerstone of the population, especially if there is a currency exchange system that blocks imports.

Goods must be brought to the people by whichever means necessary.

3) Develop a true anti-crime force.

Few things in life are as demoralizing as knowing that you have to leave from wherever you are, because you are afraid something might happen to you on the streets. Despite having local, municipal, state and national police forces, none of them have been proven to be effective against the absolute dominance that organized (and disorganized) crime has in the city. 

Venezuelans must have the right to feel safe in their own soil.

The desperation level of the population may lead to other potential goals, such as impeaching Maduro or even having him removed from office as soon as possible. However, I believe, there is no better marketing to remove someone from office, than to having your own results speak for themselves and speak for yourself, as to prove how qualified you are to do a better job than someone who currently isn't. Anything unnecessary, unneeded, uncalled for, as much as of anyone strongly interests is, is and will be a simple deviation of what the real task on hand is and must be. Moreover, it will be judged as a waste of time and a waste of trust the venezuelan people placed on the new assembly.

And that is why the opposition must not screw this up at all.

Maduro (a bus driver) follows an embarrasing list of successive poorly educated venezuelan presidents (academically speaking), preceded by Carlos Andres Perez (high-school graduate), Chavez (Lt Cnel) and Maduro himself, only interrupted by Rafael Caldera (lawyer).

Mental note (for everyone): always elect as president someone who at least went to graduate school.

Finally, I have to say that regardless of whatever the new older brother the family has, little can be done if the people do not help their own home. Rules and laws may be set, fixed, edited, improved, but the population must follow and obey them, not look for the way around them. It's like that inner wish everyone has to beat the red light: drive pass it just to be 5 seconds earlier, or obey it and add your small contribution to a functional society. 

It's as simple as that.