By KEJAL VYAS and SARA SCHAEFER MUÑOZ

CARACAS, Venezuela—New President Nicolás Maduro, trying to shore up Venezuela’s economy amid growing shortages of everything from corn flour to toilet paper, has extended an olive branch to the country’s private sector, in particular the country’s largest food maker.

It is a surprising turnaround given the antics of his predecessor, the late populist Hugo Chávez, who regularly threatened to nationalize the food maker, Empresas Polar SA, and accused it of hoarding products in order to sabotage his self-styled revolution.

This week, Mr. Maduro met with Polar’s top executive Lorenzo Mendoza—Mr. Chávez’s bête noire—to work together to resolve food issues. Mr. Mendoza discussed the same topic with Vice President Jorge Arreaza, Mr. Chávez’s son-in-law.

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After those meetings and others with the business sector, Mr. Maduro’s government raised by 20% state-controlled prices on key items of food like chicken, beef and dairy—a tacit acknowledgment that controls aimed at stemming inflation have ... Read More

Primero comenzaron a escasear la leche, la manteca, el café y la harina de maíz. Últimamente tampoco se encuentra otro producto que satisface necesidades básicas: el papel higiénico.

El gobierno lo atribuye a la oposición política y dijo que importará 50 millones de rollos de papel.

Pero eso es escaso consuelo para Manuel Fagundes. ”Tengo 71 años y primera vez en la vida que veo esto”, comentó molesto el hombre el miércoles a la salida de un supermercado en el oeste de Caracas.

“Es el colmo que hasta en este país tengamos que importar el papel toilette, y me imagino que esas son las comisiones que se están ganando para que aquí en Venezuela ya ni se produzca papel toilette”, agregó el anciano.

El gobierno anunció esta semana que realizará importaciones masivas de 760,000 toneladas de alimentos y de papel higiénico para hacer frente a los problemas de escasez y combatir lo que han denominado la “guerra económica” que estarían ocasionando los ... Read More

Caracas – El presidente de la Asamblea Nacional venezolana, el oficialista Diosdado Cabello, dijo el martes que no se pagará el salario a los diputados opositores porque no asistieron a las reuniones de las comisiones legislativas.

“Hoy trabajaron todas la comisiones en la Asamblea y no fueron (los opositores) trabajaron las comisiones con los diputados revolucionarios (…) ¿cómo les pago? yo no les puedo pagar (…) sería una irresponsabilidad de mi parte si le pago a quien no trabaje”, dijo Cabello durante un acto en el Parlamento.

Aunque las comisiones legislativas se mantienen activas, el pleno de la Asamblea Nacional no se reúne desde el 30 de abril pasado, cuando los diputados de ambos bandos se fueron a las manos y 14 de ellos resultaron con heridas.

La trifulca ocurrió cuando la minoritaria bancada opositora reclamaba su derecho de palabra, que Cabello les retiró el 16 de abril pasado porque no reconocían a Nicolás ... Read More

The death from cancer on 5 March of President Hugo Chávez triggered a snap presidential election just 40 days later that his anointed successor, Nicolás Maduro, won by a margin of less than 1.5 per cent over Henrique Capriles of the Democratic Unity (MUD) alliance. But the tight result and legal challenges to the validity of the vote cast a shadow over the sustainability of the new administration. A country already deeply polarised is now clearly divided into two almost equal halves that appear irreconcilable. The validity of the election result remains to be clarified and the full independence of the electoral authorities, judiciary, and other key institutions restored. But to address the governance crisis and allow Venezuela to tackle its serious economic and social problems, national dialogue must prevail over confrontation and consensus over partisan violence.

With institutions weakened by the Chávez government’s long-term policy of presidential co-optation, the MUD ... Read More

First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities – toilet paper.

Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the government says it will import 50m rolls to boost supplies.

That was little comfort to consumers struggling to find toilet paper on Wednesday.

“This is the last straw,” said Manuel Fagundes, a shopper hunting for tissue in Caracas. “I’m 71 years old and this is the first time I’ve seen this.”

One supermarket visited by the Associated Press in the capital on Wednesday was out of toilet paper. Another had just received a fresh batch, and it quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.

“I’ve been looking for it for two weeks,” said Cristina Ramos. “I was told that they had some here and now I’m in line.”

Economists say Venezuela’s shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods ... Read More

NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

Now that Venezuela’s larger-than-life Hugo Chávez has vanished from the political landscape, what does the future hold for South America? Though Venezuela is only a medium-sized country, Chávez was able to skillfully realign geopolitical fault lines through shrewd use of oil largesse and petro populism. It is unlikely, though, that uncharismatic Chávez successor Nicolás Maduro, who only won his country’s recent presidential election by the slightest of margins, will be as successful as his mentor in maintaining Venezuela’s carefully crafted system of regional alliances. As Venezuela fades, Brazil will naturally assume a greater leadership role, thus paving the path for a somewhat unusual three-way contest between the two South American countries and the United States. Just what form, precisely, is such competition likely to take and where are new geopolitical rivalries going to be most acutely felt? For answers, look to Brazil “buffer state” Uruguay, a country rife with ... Read More

JORDI MIRO

CARACAS — Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles, narrowly defeated at the polls by the late Hugo Chavez’s successor, said the Supreme Court will decide very soon whether a new presidential vote should be held.

In an interview Wednesday with AFP, Capriles warned that if the answer was no, he would bring his fight to “international bodies.” He insists the election was stolen from him.

“Within hours, we are going to have a decision on whether (the Supreme Court) accepts” the opposition’s bid to hold new elections, he said.

The Miranda state governor, who has not conceded the race, which the National Electoral Board says Nicolas Maduro won by 1.49 points, said that if the high court takes on the legal case, it should last about three or four months but the country’s court system is not known for its swiftness.

Capriles has filed two complaints: one over the electoral process in general and ... Read More

BY DIEGO ORE

CARACAS – Socialist leader Nicolas Maduro and the billionaire boss of Venezuela’s biggest private company have buried the hatchet after a war of words over food shortages and other economic problems in the South American nation.

Perpetuating the hard-line rhetoric of his predecessor Hugo Chavez, newly-elected Maduro turned on Empresas Polar president Lorenzo Mendoza in recent days, accusing him of hoarding products as part of an “economic war” on the state by private business.

Mendoza, whose company is Venezuela’s biggest beer- and flour-maker, denied that and pointedly challenged the government to sell production plants nationalized under Chavez back to the private sector to boost efficiency.

On Tuesday night, the pair met to discuss their differences in a spat seen by Venezuelans as a bellwether for state-business relations going forward under Maduro’s government.

Both sides came out of the meeting sounding reconciliatory and pledging to work together to overcome food shortages that have ... Read More

Venezuelan opposition TV channel Globovision has been sold and will change its editorial line, according to a statement published on its website.

One of the new managers, Leopoldo Castillo, said it would gradually move its editorial line “toward the centre”.

The channel is known for its fierce opposition to the left-wing government of late President Hugo Chavez, and that of his successor, Nicolas Maduro.

The government has repeatedly fined it and accused it of “poisoning society”.

‘Mixed feelings’

Globovision was widely seen as the only terrestrial TV station which dared to be openly critical of Mr Chavez.

Outgoing director of Globovision Guillermo Zuloaga, who had led the channel for 18 years, asked viewers to give the new management “the benefit of the doubt”.

In a letter to station staff, he said he “had mixed feelings” about the sale.

“Unfortunately, the authoritarian government led by Hugo Chavez never liked our attitude and our mission to tell the truth ... Read More

BY KARL RITTER & FABIOLA SANCHEZ

Venezuela’s biggest food company on Monday hit back at President Nicolas Maduro’s claims that it’s to blame for the country’s persistent food shortages.

The chief executive of Empresas Polar, Lorenzo Mendoza, rejected accusations by the president that the company has reduced production and is hoarding products to create scarcity.

“The accusations that we are producing less than last year are false,” Mendoza told reporters. “I presume that President Nicolas Maduro is not well informed about the situation and about what’s happening.”

Mendoza said his company has increased production of cornmeal by 10 percent in the past four months, and he offered to buy or rent government-owned corn processing plants to boost output event further.

Shortages of basic foods including sugar, milk, butter and cornmeal are a recurring annoyance to consumers in this oil-rich nation of 30 million people. Cornmeal is a crucial ingredient in arepas, or corn cakes, a ... Read More

BY JOSE OROZCO

Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro accused billionaire Lorenzo Mendoza, the owner of the nation’s largest privately-held company, of exacerbating the worst shortages in at least four years and fueling inflation.

Empresas Polar SA, which produces everything from beer to rice, has cut output to make the economic situation worse, Maduro said yesterday, resuming a conflict with a company often rebuked by former leader Hugo Chavez.

“We have many signs that Polar has been cutting production and hiding products, pretending that nothing is happening, to create shortages of products such as pre-cooked corn flour,” Maduro said on state television. Corn flour is used to make arepas, or patties, a breakfast staple in the South American nation.

Venezuela’s scarcity index, which measures the amount of goods that are out of stock in the market, rose to 21.3 percent last month, the highest since the central bank started tracking the measure in April 2009. As shortages mount, ... Read More

CARACAS — Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro said Washington was making a “grave mistake” in not acknowledging his victory in the controversial April 14 presidential election.

Maduro, 50, heir to the late leftist president Hugo Chavez, defeated opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, 40, by a razor-thin margin in the snap election to complete Chavez’s six-year term in office.

Capriles however has refused to concede defeat, claiming that the vote was riddled with irregularities.

In a May 3 interview with US Spanish-language network Univision, President Barack Obama refused to say whether Washington recognized Maduro as the winner of the April vote.

“I believe (the United States) is committing a grave mistake, one more in its policy towards Latin America,” Maduro said in an interview with the Caracas-based Telesur network.

“It is making a tremendous mistake because Venezuela plays a leadership role in Latin America and the world,” he said, highlighting the visit to Caracas on Sunday of Chinese ... Read More

Some believe the Latin American socialism of the 21st century is heading for a dead end. Growing debt and trade deficits are putting pressure on regimes there – does this mean the end of an ideology?

Growing economic problems in Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Bolivia are putting pressure on Latin America’s left-populist governments. In the struggle for power, competition has broken out among socialism, Peronism and liberalism. But some believe all three are in decline.

The fight for “21st century socialism,” as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez put it, is particularly marked in the deceased statesman’s country. That Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles has refused to recognize the victory of Chavez’ successor, Nicolás Maduro, who won disputed elections in April, is one sign.

Last week a fistfight broke out in Venezuelan parliament between Chavistas and the opposition. Meanwhile, Capriles is challenging the election results in Venezuela’s high court.

Ideological decline

Virgílio Arraes, a professor of contemporary history ... Read More

WITH a narrow and disputed election victory last month and an accelerating economic crisis, the man who succeeded Hugo Chávez as Venezuela’s president got off to an inauspicious start. Now Nicolás Maduro’s efforts to establish authority are making matters worse at home, and setting alarm bells ringing abroad.

After appearing to promise a full audit of the election results, as demanded by Henrique Capriles, the candidate of the Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition, the government backtracked. Human-rights groups say that more than 200 protesters, including teenagers, were detained by the military and many beaten up. Antonio Rivero, a retired general and leading opposition member, was arrested. He is on hunger strike, charged with “inciting hatred” and “criminal association”. Mr Capriles, who has asked the supreme court to annul the election, is threatened with jail.

There was violence even in the National Assembly. The MUD’s 67 legislators were barred from speaking and had their ... Read More

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his Argentine counterpart and ally, Cristina Fernandez, announced new energy and food agreements Wednesday, then Maduro cheered supporters of Argentina’s president with a rousing speech at a soccer-stadium rally.

Maduro said their two countries are more closely aligned than ever despite the deaths of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and of Nestor Kirchner, Fernandez’s husband who preceded her in the presidency.

“Hugo Chavez Frias and Nestor Kirchner! I feel them hear, more alive than ever!” Maduro said to wide applause.

It was the high point of a regional trip meant to shore up support after Maduro narrowly won an election challenged as fraudulent by his opponent, Henrique Capriles. The disputed outcome and related violence have Venezuelans even more polarized, and Maduro is looking to shore up friends amid questions about the sustainability of the petrodollar diplomacy Chavez spread around the region.

Maduro met earlier with President ... Read More

BY MOISES NAIM

Scene 1. Carmen felt both exhausted and thrilled. Exhausted because her 78 years made the 15-hour bus ride too long. And thrilled because she had voted in Venezuela’s presidential election. To do so, she had to travel from Miami to New Orleans, the nearest place where Venezuelans living in South Florida could vote. The long journey was caused by President Hugo Chávez’ decision to close his country’s consulate in Miami. So the 20,000 Venezuelans who live there (most of whom are not Chávez supporters) had to choose between not voting or going to New Orleans. Thousands travelled on buses, cars or aircraft. They voted in the October presidential elections and – after Chávez’ death in March – again in the snap election on April 14 to elect his successor. Television channels in New Orleans broadcast surprising, and very moving, images of young people, couples with babies and elderly ... Read More

Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe says he will take Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.

Mr Maduro’s accusation that Mr Uribe had plotted to assassinate him had put the Colombian’s life at risk, his lawyer said.

Mr Uribe’s lawyer said he also wanted a libel investigation in Colombia.

Mr Maduro also implied Mr Uribe could have been involved in the killing of a Venezuelan journalist.

The Venezuelan leader said on Friday he had evidence that right-wing Venezuelan politicians were involved in a plot masterminded by Mr Uribe.

‘Immature accusations’

But Mr Uribe – a fierce critic of the late President Hugo Chavez – dismissed Mr Maduro’s accusation as “immature”.

On Sunday, Mr Uribe’s lawyer issued a statement saying the former president’s “life and bodily integrity” had been put at risk.

“In the next few hours I will appeal to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights to ask for precautionary measures in favour ... Read More

BY JONATHAN MANTHORPE

Venezuela’s former president Hugo Chavez got away with being a buffoon because he was also a talented showman.

His protégé and successor, Nicolas Maduro, matches his master’s skills … except for the showmanship.

Nearly a month after the unexpectedly tight presidential election race following Chavez’s death from cancer in early March, Maduro’s grip on power is looking decidedly flaccid.

The question is not so much if he will be toppled, but who will do it and how soon.

Maduro needs to watch his back just as much as his front. While there are plenty of factions within the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) who may move to dump Maduro, most eyes are watching the military and its frontman, National Assembly President Diosado Cabello.

Indeed, there is speculation that Cabello, a military veteran with Chavez of the abortive 1992 coup, is already the real power in Venezuela.

For the time being, the PSUV ... Read More

Last year, in the run-up to what would be Hugo Chávez’s final election, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter provided the ultimate cover for the late caudillo when he called the Venezuelan election process “the best in the world.”  Today, as the country roils in the aftermath of a contested election to elect Chávez’s successor, we now know that is not the case.

Who says? Carter’s own election-monitoring organization. Last week, an official at the Carter Center told the Washington Post, ”The concerns are not about the [voting] machines and whether they counted accurately. The questions are much more about who voted. Was there double voting? Was there impersonation of voters? And was there coerced voting?”

All good questions, ones which anyone should expect to be assessed before making pronouncements about any electoral process as the “best in the world.” This is no small matter, since the Carter Center, perhaps more than any other organization outside Venezuela, has repeatedly granted legitimacy to Hugo Chávez’s successive reelections, even as ... Read More

BY HELEN MURPHY

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on Monday refused to be drawn into a war of words between his predecessor – and harshest critic – and Venezuela’s new president, Nicholas Maduro.

Maduro, elected last month to replace the late Hugo Chavez, said on Friday he had evidence that Alvaro Uribe, president of Colombia from 2002 until mid 2010, was conspiring with the Venezuelan opposition to kill him.

Santos was reprimanded on social media and by another former president for not responding to Maduro’s explosive comments, which also included an allegation that Uribe could have been involved in the death of a Venezuelan journalist.

Santos said he would not comment publicly on the dispute – a veiled poke at Uribe, who has used his Twitter account to defend himself against Maduro’s attacks that he is a “Mafioso” and “murderer.”

“The dignity of former presidents is defended better – not with shouts or public insults ... Read More