Street protests loom as shortages, inflation and oil slump hit Venezuela

Even Venezuela’s most conciliatory opposition leader has had enough. Amid sky-high inflation, an absent president, snaking queues outside supermarkets, and plummeting oil prices, Henrique Capriles said this week that the time was ripe to try to force a change. “We are in a state of emergency,” he said on Monday. “This is the time to mobilise in the streets.” The call to protest was significant because Capriles, a state governor, disavowed last year’s violent protests demanding the resignation of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president. Instead, Capriles had advocated regime change through the ballot box. But the situation on the ground has changed since then. Venezuela’s economy is estimated to have shrunk by 4% in 2014, with inflation hitting 64%. The price of oil, which accounts for more than 95% of Venezuela’s hard-currency income, continues to fall. According to the latest opinion poll, Maduro enjoys the support of just 22% of the population, and he has come under fire on social media and editorial pages for spending nearly two weeks outside the country – with his extended family in tow – while the crisis deepens. Most worrying for Venezuelans are food shortages. Standing in line for hours to buy basic subsidised goods… Read full this story

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