Presidency of Hugo Chávez

Venezuela since February 2, 1999 saw sweeping and radical shifts in social policy, moving away from the government officially embracing a free market economy and neoliberal reform principles and towards socialist income redistribution and social welfare programs. Then-President Hugo Chávez just as radically up-ended Venezuela's traditional foreign policy. Instead of continuing Venezuela's past support for American and European strategic interests, Chávez promoted alternative development and integration paradigms for the Global South.

Chávez died in office on 5 March 2013; he was succeeded by his Vice President Nicolás Maduro, who gained a slim majority in the 14 April 2013 special election and has ruled by decree for the majority of the period between 19 November 2013 through 2016.

Hugo Chávez's political activity began in the 1980s and 1990s, a period of economic downturn and social upheaval in Venezuela. Venezuela's economic well-being fluctuated with the unstable demand for its primary export commodity, oil. Oil accounts for three-quarters of Venezuela's exports, half of its government's fiscal income, and a quarter of the nation's GDP.

The 1970s were boom years for oil, during which the material standard of living for all classes in Venezuela improved. This was partly due to the ruling AD and COPEI parties' investing in social welfare projects which, because of the government's oil income, they could do without heavily taxing private wealth. "Venezuelan workers enjoyed the highest wages in Latin America and subsidies in food, health, education and transport." However, "toward the end of the 1970s, these tendencies began to reverse themselves." Per capita oil income and per capita income both declined, leading to a foreign debt crisis and forced devaluation of the bolivar in 1983. The negative trend continued through the 1990s. "Per capita income in 1997 was 8 percent less than in 1970; workers' income during this period was reduced by approximately half." "Between 1984 and 1995 the percentage of people living below the poverty line jumped from 36 percent to 66 percent, while the number of people suffering from extreme poverty tripled, from 11 percent to 36 percent."

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