Intended to tame inflation, food-price controls originally imposed by Chavez in 2003 have been tightened this year and have had a devastating impact on food production. Producers of 14 basic foodstuffs have been forced to absorb the costs of the scheme: they saw labour and transport costs rise by up to 200% between January and August 2012, but their ability to raise their sale prices was tightly limited. To ignore the controls might result in the expropriation of their land, but to accept them would risk bankruptcy. So while Chavez claimed during his re-election campaign that food production had increased by 70% during his 13 years in office, there was in fact an agricultural-production crisis going on. The production of food, drinks and tobacco fell by 9.4% in the second quarter of 2012, the fifth consecutive quarter of contraction; food production per capita in Venezuela is thought to have fallen by 32% in the last ten years.
Despite Chavez's efforts, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the 12-month food inflation rate stood at 21.7% in July, more than double the average for Latin America and the Caribbean. Food imports have risen sharply as a result, though Caracas has denied suggestions that these account for 70% of all food consumed in the country.
Enduring popularity
Though Chavez's margin of victory in the election was significantly smaller than in 2006, he still won in 22 of Venezuela's 24 states. His strict control of a state media empire has enabled him to build a strong cult of personality. According to Venezuelan NGO Citizen Control, approximately 100 hours of his speeches were televised nationally between January and October.
But his flamboyant style has kept other members of his party, the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), away from the limelight. It is plagued by frequent infighting between high-ranking figures, while at a regional level at least ten of the 17 state governors loyal to Chavez face corruption allegations or have serious differences with their colleagues. Although Chavez's personal appeal appears not to have been undermined by the population's doubts about his fellow PSUV politicians, the future prospects of the 'chavismo' movement without him are poor.
The most prominent party member after Chavez, newly appointed vice president Nicolas Maduro, will also keep his previous post as foreign minister. However, he is considered much less charismatic. A March poll by Datanalisis, one of the most reliable polling firms in Venezuela, suggested that none of the key 'chavistas' would fare very well if they were to run in a presidential election against Capriles.
Chavez seems to be aware of the fragility of his movement, especially given the health problems that he has suffered. As recently as February 2012, he underwent surgery in Cuba for a cancer in the pelvic area, followed by radiotherapy. During his victory speech, the president referred to his government's broken promises and pledged to 'work harder, demand more from my team' in order to 'make the administration more efficient in the next six years'. Government inefficiency is a key source of popular discontent; Chavez has taken new measures this year to address this.
Fragile security apparatus
In a Venezuela without Chavez as its leader, not only would his political allies be thrown into disarray, but so too would the armed groups operating in poor neighbourhoods and the official government militias, all of which swear allegiance to Chavez and his 'Bolivarian revolution'.
In the 23 de Enero slum in Caracas, ten armed groups with varying levels of loyalty to the Chavez regime are thought to be active. Though claiming to defend the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela with their weapons, they use them instead to set up checkpoints to enforce control over the local population. They have been linked to attacks against symbols representing the opposition, such as the privately owned Globovision television station.
Meanwhile, the Bolivarian militias are of particular concern, since they serve essentially as bodyguards for Chavez who, with a failed 2002 military coup in mind, protects himself from internal as well as external threats. All 125,000 members of the Bolivarian militias are affiliated to the PSUV, and were formally incorporated into the armed forces in 2009. (There are 115,000 personnel in the traditional military services.)
Apart from receiving guidance in the principles of socialism, Marxism and 'revolutionary ethics', the militias also receive military training and arms. To this end, Venezuela purchased 100,000 AK-103 rifles from Russia in 2005 and is now close to completing work on a factory in which up to 25,000 rifles could be produced indigenously each year.
But Venezuela's refusal to release data on the spiralling number of weapons in circulation in the country, which according to estimates by the Venezuelan Observatory on Violence number 5-6 million, has raised concerns that the government has little control over the situation. The murder rate stood at 67 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2011, double that of 2001 and one of the highest in Latin America. This increase in the number of homicides, along with reports of weapons belonging to a task force loyal to the defence ministry ending up in crime scenes in Venezuela, gives credence to such suspicions.
The growth in criminal violence, accompanied by declining food security and rising inflation, is likely to increase the public's impatience with the 'chavismo' movement regardless of Chavez's charismatic leadership. An increasing number of people blame flagship government policies, such as fiscal expansion and military build-up, for the fact that they cannot find the food they want at the local supermarket or walk the streets safely. Despite the positive impact for many Venezuelans of his oil-funded social programmes, he will leave a questionable legacy for his successors.
