MARÍA CORINA MACHADO
CARACAS – Venezuela is on the cusp of a profound transformation. An organized popular movement is mobilizing to oust President Nicolás Maduro through lawful and institutional means. I am honored to help spearhead this effort to restore my country’s democracy, alongside a diverse coalition of citizens, professionals, and political and social leaders.
My country’s spectacular economic collapse is notorious worldwide. Years of negative growth under Maduro has resulted in staggering poverty and mass migration, with estimates suggesting that nearly 25% of the population has left since 2015. No one sincerely believes economic recovery is possible under the corrupt, dictatorial, and criminal regime that has been in power for the past quarter-century.
Twenty-five years ago, Venezuela was the wealthiest country in Latin America; today, it is one of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. From 2012 to 2022, GDP plummeted by an astonishing 75%, with no signs of bottoming out. The bolivar, Venezuela’s national currency, has experienced unprecedented depreciation, resulting in hyperinflation reminiscent of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe in 2008, and Hungary and Greece in the aftermath of World War II.
As a result of Maduro’s economic mismanagement, Venezuela’s health-care system is in ruins, with more than 60% of hospitals lacking clean water. Our education system is falling apart, with teachers earning an average of $20 per month and public-school students attending classes only two days a week.
This grim reality is a direct result of the “twenty-first-century socialism” introduced by Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez. The regime Chávez created depends for its survival on predatory and parasitic practices, and has thus gone to great lengths to protect its hold on power, for example by taking control of the judiciary and silencing independent media.
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