How to hasten the demise of Venezuela’s dictatorship
Recognising an interim president instead of Nicolás Maduro is a start
FOR YEARS Venezuela’s socialist regime has seemed on the verge of collapse. It has so mismanaged the economy that GDP has dropped by nearly half since 2013. Inflation last year was thought to be more than 1m per cent. This, plus shortages of food, medicine, running water and electricity, has prompted some 3m Venezuelans, a tenth of the population, to flee the country. Yet its president, Nicolás Maduro, has clung on by flouting the constitution, repressing the opposition and using the country’s dwindling income from oil, almost its only export, to pay off the armed forces that support him. On January 10th Latin America’s most incompetent ruler was sworn in to a second six-year term.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Removing Maduro”
From the January 26th 2019 edition
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