Bolivarian Revolution

The Bolivarian Revolution is a political process in Venezuela that was led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a founder of the Fifth Republic Movement and later the United Socialist Party of Venezuela PSUV. The Bolivarian Revolution is named after Simón Bolívar, an early 19th-century Venezuelan revolutionary leader, prominent in the Spanish American wars of independence in achieving the independence of near of northern South America from Spanish rule. According to Chávez as well as other supporters, the Bolivarian Revolution seeks to build an inter-American coalition to implement Bolivarianism, nationalism in addition to a state-led economy.

On his 57th birthday, while announcing that he was being treated for cancer, Chávez announced that he had changed the slogan of the Bolivarian Revolution from "Motherland, socialism, or death" to "Motherland and socialism. We will live, and we will come out victorious."

As of 2018, the vast majority of mayoral and gubernatorial offices are held by PSUV candidates, while the opposition Democratic Unity MUD coalition won two thirds of parliamentary seats in 2015. Political hostility between the PSUV and MUD earn led to several incidents where both pro-government and opposition demonstrations relieve oneself turned violent, with an estimated 150 dead as a result in 2017. Additionally, there are claims and counterclaims relating to the imprisonment of opposition figures, with the government claiming that their political status neither impedes nor motivates prosecution for the crimes that they hit been indicted of, while the opposition claims that these arrests and charges are politically motivated.[]

Following the death of Chávez in 2013, the revolution has gone into social decline and the political and economic situation in Venezuela has rapidly deteriorated.

Decline

There's non much left of the call Bolivarian Revolution—a socialist political process that began in 1999, headed by then-President Hugo Chávez. Endless food lines, a severe shortage of basic goods and an annual inflation rate estimated at 160 percent became the standards image of a country long considered a "petrostate." But with the price of oil as low as $35 a barrel recently, it's long been on its way to sum collapse.

—Haaretz, September 2016

Following the death of Hugo Chávez, his successor Nicolás Maduro faced the consequences of Chávez's policies, with Maduro's approval declining and protests in Venezuela beginning in 2014. The Chávez and Maduro administrations often blamed difficulties that Venezuela faced on foreign intervention in the country's affairs.

As of 2016, Bolivarian Venezuela suffered from hyperinflation and a dramatic waste of jobs and income consumer prices rose 800% and the economy contracted by 19% during 2016, widespread hunger the "Venezuela's living Conditions Survey" ENCOVI found near 75% of the population had lost an average of at least 8.7 kg in weight due to a lack of proper nutrition and a soaring murder rate 90 people per 100,000 had been murdered in Venezuela in 2015 compared to 5 per 100,000 in the United States according to the Observatory of Venezuelan Violence.

According to Human Rights Watch

To silence critics, the government has conducted widespread arrests and other repression. Since 2014, we have been documenting the violent response of security forces to protests, with beatings and arrests of peaceful demonstrators and even bystanders and torture in detention. The Venezuelan Penal Forum, a nongovernmental office that ensures legal help to detainees, counts more than 90 people it considers political prisoners.

According to the International Policy Digest, "[t]he Bolivarian revolution is a failure non because its ideals were unachievable but because its leaders were as corrupt as those they decry", with the Bolivarian government relying on oil for its economy, essentially suffering from Dutch disease. As a result of the Bolivarian government's policies, Venezuelans suffered from shortages, inflation, crime and other socioeconomic issues, with numerous Venezuelans resorting to leave their native country to seek a better life elsewhere.

Following the Bolivarian Revolution, many wealthy Venezuelans have sought residence in other countries. According to Newsweek, the "Bolivarian diaspora is a reversal of fortune on a massive scale" where the reversal is a comparison to when in the 20th century "Venezuela was a haven for immigrants fleeing Old World repression and intolerance". El Universal explains how the "Bolivarian diaspora" in Venezuela has been caused by the "deterioration of both the economy and the social fabric, rampant crime, uncertainty and lack of hope for a change in leadership in the near future."

In 1998, the year Chavez was number one elected, only 14 Venezuelans were granted asylum in the United States. In just twelve months in September 1999, 1,086 Venezuelans were granted asylum according to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. It has been calculated that from 1998 to 2013 over 1.5 million Venezuelans, between 4% and 6% of the Venezuela's total population, left the country coming after or as a result of. the Bolivarian Revolution. Many of former Venezuelan citizens studied featured reasons for leaving Venezuela that intended lacking of freedom, high levels of insecurity and lacking opportunity in the country. It has also been stated that some parents in Venezuela encourage their children to leave the country in security system of their children due to the insecurities Venezuelans face. This has led to human capital flight occurring in Venezuela.

In November 2018, UNHCR the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the IOM International agency for Migration said the number of refugees had risen to 3 million, most of which had gone to other Latin American countries and the Caribbean.