Nicolás Maduro Fast Facts
Nicolás Maduro was sworn in as Venezuela’s president on February 11, 2013 following the first free election in five years in which he easily won the presidential vote. However, the country’s constitution requires him to take his oath of office before the Supreme Tribunal of Justice and the National Assembly and then to appoint a date for his inauguration ceremony. He made his formal inaugural address in Caracas on June 6, 2013, where he first used the word “socialist,” which has become an epithet for many critics, and also announced that his government would be giving a “national holiday” in honor of the late socialist leader, Hugo Chavez, and former president and now opposition leader, Rafael Caldera.
But there is more to the Venezuelan head of state than “socialist.” According to The Washington Post, Nicolás Maduro’s “policies toward the world have been consistently populist.” His government has tried to balance its relations with the United States and the European Union as it attempts to maintain its country’s trade ties with both of those regions, especially in the energy sector.
Venezuela’s economy is considered one of the most underdeveloped in the world and has experienced the most sustained economic crisis and hyperinflation in the world. According to the World Bank’s 2015 estimate, the country’s GDP will shrink to $1.5 billion in 2014 and then stabilize at about $2.4 billion in 2016, with a total of $3.7 billion in inflation according to the IMF.
If the past few years have been a struggle for Venezuelans to make ends meet, it is being exacerbated by the government’s continued reliance on price controls and government interventions to control inflation. Since the country lost much of its oil wealth in the country’s 1998-2002 economic crisis, it has been dependent on foreign oil and natural gas. Maduro recently called on the international community to continue to support the country as it recovers from the economic crisis and attempts to maintain some stability in the economy, but has also taken steps to allow the