|Area:||916,445 sq km (353,841 sq mi)|
|Population||(2008 est.): 27,884,000|
|Head of state and government:||President Hugo Chávez Frías|
On Nov. 30, 2008, Pres. Hugo Chávez asked Venezuela’s official government political party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), to call for a popular referendum that would amend the 1999 constitution to allow for the indefinite reelection of the president. Voters had narrowly rejected a similar proposal in a December 2007 constitutional referendum that would also have centralized power even further.
In the November 23 elections, opponents of Chávez’s socialist revolution retained the two governorships that they had won in 2004 and added three more. These five states encompassed 44% of Venezuela’s population. Opposition candidates also won election as the mayors of Caracas, Maracaibo, and Petare (a zone in eastern Caracas dominated by shantytowns), which had traditionally supported the government. On the other hand, the PSUV won a substantial majority of the governorships, mayoralties, and state legislative seats at stake. Chávez interpreted these results, mixed though they were, as strengthening his chances of winning approval for constitutional changes in a second referendum—if he acted quickly in order to blunt the ability of the opposition to take advantage of the gains that they had made in the regional and local elections.
The decline in world oil prices during the second half of the year caused economic problems. Revenue tumbled as the price of Venezuelan crude fell almost 70% between July and December. Rainy-day funds totaling more than $40 billion enabled Chávez to avoid significant cutbacks in public spending. Nevertheless, the global credit crunch raised the spectre of default or the rescheduling of Venezuela’s dollar-denominated debt. The economic growth rate slowed during the year to 6%, down from 8.4% in 2007. Inflation was projected to increase to 27% over the 2007 rate of 19%. Traditional vulnerabilities became a greater concern, since Venezuela was more dependent than ever before on oil sales, which contributed roughly one-half of central government revenue, 95% of export revenue, and 15% of GDP. Also of concern was the continuing lack of transparency in public accounts, which contributed to creditor and investor nervousness. In October the Economist Intelligence Unit estimated that the central government’s true fiscal position was worse than the official statistics suggested. This was due to the channeling of additional off-budget spending through the national development fund and the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela. These conditions increased the likelihood that the country’s currency would come under pressure for significant devaluation, especially if high public spending continued without a significant rise in oil prices.
In the international arena, Venezuela continued to strengthen relations with countries capable of challenging the United States. Chávez signed new bilateral agreements with Iran, Russia, and China. He also attempted to form an axis of militant socialist countries in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. government chided Venezuela over the increase in cocaine trafficking through its national territory and over the support of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgency by some of Chávez’s closest confidants. Venezuelan hostility was an important consideration in U.S. Pres. George W. Bush’s decision to reestablish the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet (oriented in the Caribbean and Latin America). The U.S. government was especially concerned over Venezuela’s purchase since 2005 of more than $4 billion in arms from Russia, including aircraft and attack submarines. Relations with Brazil grew more cordial in 2008 as Chávez and Pres. Luis Ignácio Lula da Silva signed a number of bilateral cooperation agreements on energy, education, and agriculture. Venezuela also joined Brazil and other South American countries in establishing the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), which would integrate two existing customs unions, the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) and the Andean Community. Membership in UNASUR fit well with Chávez’s goal of crafting a multipolar world.