Venezuela: ‘Economic Emergency’ Allows Rule by Decree

Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela, has announced an “economic state of emergency,” allowing him to rule by decree, in yet another attempt to diminish the power of the nation’s legislature ruled by the opposition anti-socialist party for the first time in 17 years.

 

Maduro announced a 60-day “economic emergency,” beginning on Friday, which will allow Maduro to override any attempt by the legislature to liberalize the strictly socialist Venezuelan economy. The decision followed the release of official economic data for the first time in more than a year, showing Venezuela’s rampant inflation problem and warning of even worse economic decline. The government estimates the national inflation rate at 141.5 percent.

 

This number, experts say, is significantly smaller than the actual inflation rate in Venezuela, which the socialist government is trying to hide. Alejandro Werner, Latin America regional director for the International Monetary Fund, noted that the IMF’s official studies found that Venezuela’s inflation rate in 2015 reached 270 percent, and IMF estimates show the nation has the potential to reach a 500 percent inflation rate by the end of 2016.

 

It remains unclear how Maduro will use his decree power to lower inflation, nor how his Vice President of Economics will approach the problem. Luis Salas, a 39-year-old professor, has previously written that “inflation does not exist in real life” and is an imperialist fabrication “used as a tool of political struggle to pressure governments, impose interests, or simply to conspire to make the population desperate, demoralized, and hateful.”

 

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