Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro received special powers from the country’s National Assembly on Tuesday in a bid to tackle corruption and a spiraling economy.
Maduro’s powers, authorized under the Enabling Act, allow him to rule by decree without consulting Venezuela’s Congress for twelve months. According to Reuters, Maduro is already planning on implementing two laws very soon. One will limit businesses’ profit margins from fifteen to thirty percent as part of an “economic offensive” against price-gouging. The other would create a new state body to oversee dollar sales by Venezuela’s currency control board. The laws are a response to a growing demand for hard currency in Venezuela’s black market after the Bolivar fuente, the national currency, hit an inflation rate of 54 percent.
Although a member of the oil cartel OPEC, analysts believe that not even the country’s oil revenues can cushion the blow of years of economic mismanagement. Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, used the Enabling Act to nationalize large portions of Venezuela’s oil industry all in the name of socialism. Under his command, Chávez used the oil revenues to buy votes among the poor with handouts such as refrigerators and reward those who supported his policies. Maduro, as Chávez’s hand-picked successor, has vowed to continue the socialist revolution in Venezuela and punish those he has coined “barbaric… capitalist parasites.” According to the Washington Post, dozens of business owners were arrested after being accused of speculating and hoarding supplies as the country faces severe shortages of basic goods, including bananas and toilet paper. Soon after, Venezuela’s government slashed prices at appliance dealers, auto-mechanic stores and toy shops, prompting a rush on businesses across the country as shoppers hunted for bargains.
Along with fears of further damage to Venezuela’s economy, critics claim that Maduro will also use his special powers to silence critics of his rule in the name of anti-corruption. According to the BBC, Maduro’s powers come just before local elections in the country on December 8 and members of the opposition parties in the National Assembly fear Maduro will target them in order to consolidate his regime’s hold on power. Reuters reports that Maduro’s “war on corruption” has already led to the downfalls of an opposition advisor accused of running a transvestite prostitution ring and an opposition legislator stripped of parliamentary immunity for allegedly mismanaging a state-owned stadium. Maduro’s opponents say that he should be chasing military generals and other senior officials they blame for turning Venezuela into a major supply route for Colombian drugs. But the government denies this is the case, saying that narcotic seizures are on the rise.
Political analyst Luis Vicente León believes that Maduro is trying to follow in Chávez’s footsteps and “demolish the idea that he is weak…. He does this with populist actions that can connect him to the people.” Whether or not Maduro’s special powers will be a benefit to his rule and help him to connect with many poor Venezuelans who supported Chávez. Unlike Chávez, whose fiery, charismatic temper helped him to sustain vast support among Venezuelans despite a bad economy, the less bombastic Maduro has struggled to maintain a fraction of this support.