Political Systems - Venezuela

Venezuela is a country on the northern coast of South America and it is full of natural attractions. Venezuela is listed as a Federal Presidential Republic, there is a president who is both head of state and head of the government of Venezuela. Currently, Venezuela is in a bad state, people are constantly out on the streets protesting against the violence of their government and the violence of the criminals. The people of Venezuela are fighting for food, safety and freedom, but how did this happen? Venezuela used to be the richest country in South America, it has the largest known oil reserves in the word and its democratic government system was once praised all around the world. Today, Venezuela's economy and government is in shambles they currently have the highest inflation rate in the world, they're GDP dropped by 35% in the past four years which is even worse that what America experienced in the Great Depression. The countries murder rate went from one of the lowest to one of the highest in the world and citizens have been forced to kill and eat zoo animals because of the lack of food. Polls show that 80% of all Venezuelans are currently protesting against they're president, Nicolás Maduro because the year he was elected was when the country began to fall. But Maduro has consolidated his power and pushed Venezuelan citizens farther into authoritarian rule. When Maduro was first elected the National Assembly of Venezuela wanted him removed from office but Maduro fought back by kicking out Supreme Court justices and filling they're places with his friends. The court then abolished the National Assembly which sparked large protests, after the protests the Supreme Court decision was taken back but the damage that Maduro had caused was already done. Maduro decided to hold a vote to either bring back the old assembly or make a new Assembly called the National Constituent Assembly. Which would have the power to completely re-write Venezuela's constitution which would leave to opposition to Maduro's rule. But the Venezuelan citizens weren't voting on whether or not to have the National Constituent Assembly, they could only elect the leaders. But in 1999 Hugo Chávez (Maduro's Predecessor) proposed a constitutional rewrite he first proposed a general vote to propose an election of the assembly and after the majority of the citizens voted yes they elected a new National Constituent Assembly. Unlike Maduro, the people of Venezuela loved Chávez and trusted him as a leader. Then after he was put into power in 2004 the oil prices surged causing a huge economic boost for Venezuela. Chávez went on to spend billions on social well fair programs like education, food and healthcare for the people of Venezuela. He reduced poverty by more that 50%. But this helped Chávez as well, if he was going to win the election he needed to keep these benefits up. So he moved to a more socialist economic system. During these times he didn't try to make Venezuela less dependent on oil so in 2014 after Chávez had died and Maduro took his place as his successor the oil prices dropped and the country fell because all of these costly programs like universal healthcare couldn't be funded. Hyper-inflation has made the benefits that the country was living off of impossible to pay for so food, medicine and healthcare became impossible to provide. Now 82% of the population is considered poor and cannot receive help due to inflation and the lack of currency. If Chávez adopted a more capitalist system during 2004 and allowed Venezuela to find more means of income during the big oil boom the population would be able to grow off of the economy instead of off the government so when the price of oil fell the whole country didn't fall. Thats why socialism has a history of not working and why Venezuelan citizens need help as they are fighting for freedom inside they're own homes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1gUR8wM5vA

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/opinion/venezuela-maduro-socialism-government.html