Haunted Venezuela

Venezuela has suffered greatly under the authoritarian socialist leadership of the late Hugo Chavez and his handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro. The country has watched its once-bustling economy tank, inflation rates skyrocket, unemployment numbers plummet, the middle class erode, and individual rights and freedoms for its citizens take an extended holiday. The December 2015 parliamentary elections were the first ray of hope that Venezuela might finally escape this monstrous abyss. The Democratic Unity Roundtable, a big-tent political coalition of anti-Chavez/Maduro parties on the left and right, won a supermajority (112 out of 167 seats) in the National Assembly. More…