CARACAS, Venezuela — For a glimpse into Venezuela’s
economic disarray, slip into a travel agency here and book a round-trip
flight to Maracaibo, on the other side of the country, for just $16.
Need a book to read on the plane? For those with hard currency, a new
copy of “50 Shades of Grey” goes for $2.50. Forget your toothpaste? A
tube of Colgate costs 7 cents.
Quite the bargain, right?
But
for the majority of Venezuelans who lack easy access to dollars, such
surreal prices reflect a tremendous currency devaluation and a crumbling
economy expected to contract 7 percent this year as oil income plunges and price controls produce acute shortages of items including milk, detergent and condoms.
“I’ve
seen people die on the operating table because we didn’t have the basic
tools for surgeries,” said Valentina Herrera, 35, a pediatrician at a
public hospital in Maracay, a city near Caracas. She said she planned to
look for other work because making ends meet on her salary of 5,622
bolívars a month — $33 at a new exchange rate unveiled recently — was impossible.
Faced
with tumbling approval ratings as Venezuelans reel from the economic
shock, President Nicolás Maduro is intensifying a crackdown on his
opponents, reflected in last week’s arrest of Antonio Ledezma, the mayor
of Caracas, and his indictment on charges of conspiracy and plotting an
American-backed coup.
Mr.
Maduro, a protégé of President Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, has
adopted an increasingly shrill tone against critics of Venezuela’s
so-called Bolivarian Revolution. As evidence against Mr. Ledezma, Mr.
Maduro pointed to an open letter this month calling for “a national
agreement for a transition” that was signed by Mr. Ledezma; Leopoldo
López, another opposition figure who has been imprisoned for the past
year; and María Corina Machado, an opposition politician charged in
December with plotting to assassinate Mr. Maduro.
“In
Venezuela we are thwarting a coup supported and promoted from the
north,” Mr. Maduro said over the weekend on Twitter. “The aggression of
power from the United States is total and on a daily basis.”
Mr.
Maduro is taking a page from Mr. Chávez, who was briefly ousted in a
2002 coup with the Bush administration’s tacit approval, then made
attacking Washington and locking up
people suspected of being putschists a fixture of his government. But
the State Department has disputed Mr. Maduro’s claims, saying the United
States is not promoting unrest in Venezuela.
At
the same time, the move by Mr. Maduro points to a hardening in how
opposition figures here are treated. Thirty-three of the 50 opposition
mayors in the country are now facing legal action in connection with
antigovernment protests last year that left 43 people dead, according to
Gerardo Blyde, the mayor of Baruta, a Caracas municipality.
One
prominent opposition mayor, Daniel Ceballos of the city of San
Cristóbal, has been in jail for the past year, while another, Enzo
Scarano of the industrial town of San Diego in Carabobo State, was
transferred from jail to house arrest last month because of
deteriorating health.
The arrest of Mr. Ledezma, 59, who was democratically elected but had much of his authority stripped away in 2009,
has even some pro-Chávez analysts questioning the wisdom of Mr.
Maduro’s move. While Mr. Ledezma joined a hardline faction of the
opposition last year called “the Exit,” he was not viewed as especially
prominent or influential.
“Fueling
suspicion is a distraction tactic from the huge currency devaluation
we’ve had to withstand,” said Nicmer Evans, a pro-Chávez political
consultant who is among those on the left here now openly criticizing
Mr. Maduro. “What’s not clear is the proof of wrongdoing in this case.”
With
inflation soaring to a rate of 68 percent, the Venezuelan authorities
are seeking to manage the economic crisis with a complex web of three
official exchange rates. For instance, some basic goods are imported at
rates of 6.3 and 12 bolívars to the dollar, but a new floating rate of
about 171 was introduced last week, effectively reflecting a devaluation
of nearly 70 percent.
On the black market, which some Venezuelans already use to carry out basic transactions, the rate is even higher.
Even
for some Chávez loyalists, Mr. Maduro seems to be in over his head in
dealing with the scramble for hard currency. Jorge Giordani, one of the
late president’s top economic advisers, said this month that Venezuela
was emerging as Latin America’s “laughingstock,” citing corruption and
labyrinthine bureaucracy as factors accentuating the economic quagmire.
“We
need to acknowledge the crisis, comrades,” said Mr. Giordani, whom the
president ousted last year as finance and planning minister.
Indeed,
some economists say that the government’s hesitance to overhaul its
perplexing currency controls could intensify Venezuela’s economic
problems.
“The
system is going haywire,” said Francisco Rodríguez, chief Andean
economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, emphasizing that galloping
price increases could soon enter the realm of hyperinflation,
accelerating to triple digits this year and to more than 1,000 percent
in 2016 if policies are maintained.
Mr.
Maduro seems to recognize that some profound economic changes are
needed in Venezuela, which commands the world’s largest oil reserves,
creating the illusion of inexhaustible wealth.
He supports raising the price of gasoline, which costs less than 10
cents a gallon at the strongest official exchange rate; there is considerable resistance to such a shift even though the fuel subsidy costs the government more than $12 billion a year.
But
ahead of congressional elections this year in which Mr. Maduro’s
supporters seem vulnerable, the president is also seeking to shore up
his base.
Mr.
Ledezma’s wife, Mitzy, told Reuters on Sunday that the president was
showing his dictatorial tendencies. “He knows that every day there are
more opponents,” she said.
Despite the widespread complaints about hardship and high levels of violent crime, some here remain loyal to Mr. Maduro out of gratitude for a vast array of social welfare programs.
“I’ll
vote for Maduro until I die,” said Marco Miraval, 77, who sells
coconuts in 23 de Enero, a sprawling housing complex that is a bastion
for pro-Chávez groups, pointing to Mr. Maduro’s support of subsidized
university education and health care. He said Venezuela’s economic
problems were a result of Washington’s pressure on the government. “It’s
because they’re being sabotaged by this economic war,” he said.
Still,
while Venezuela’s opposition remains divided and hampered by the
arrests of some leading figures, Mr. Maduro lacks the oratorical skill
of Mr. Chávez, who skewered his opponents in what often seemed like a
stream-of-consciousness approach to governing that kept many Venezuelans
on the edge of their seats.
“Maduro
is trying to consolidate his leadership without having the charisma to
do so,” said Margarita López Maya, a historian who studies protest
movements, describing his latest moves as amounting to “an excess of
authoritarianism.”
In
the meantime, bizarre prices persist for many basic services, punishing
those who earn and save in bolívars while benefiting an elite with
access to hard currency in bank accounts abroad. For instance, monthly
broadband service from the state telecommunications company costs less
than the equivalent of $1. The monthly electricity bill for a huge
luxury apartment, with air-conditioning on at all hours, comes to less
than $2.
Even
that absurdly cheap flight to Maracaibo is more complicated than it
appears since some airlines have trouble obtaining the dollars they need
to maintain their planes.
“You’ll
see things you’ll never believe: half a dozen aircraft from just one
airline just waiting on the ground because they don’t have parts,” said
Nicolás Veloz, a pilot based in Caracas.
For
some Venezuelans who are struggling to get by, the economic disorder
they see explains the president’s targeting of his opponents. “Maduro is
terrified, and so he’s using more totalitarian methods, putting
politicians in prison with so many police,” said Eduardo de Sousa, 28, a
pharmaceutical lab assistant. “They know that the revolution is over,
and they’re scared.”
