The Biggest Issue in Venezuela

In most political campaigns, any number of issues can generally capture the attention of the electorate and serve as the deciding factor when evaluating a candidate. In the United States right now it is easy to imagine voters deciding that the most important problem to solve is how to create more jobs, improve health care, shrink the deficit, or end the war in Afghanistan, etc. In Venezuela, on the other hand, one issue supersedes all others: insecurity. Quite simply, safety conditions in much of the country are abysmal and deteriorating.


Reliable statistics on crime and safety here are difficult to find. The 2011 United Nations Global Study on Homicide reported a rate of 49 homicides per 100,000 people in Venezuela in 2009, the latest year for which it could acquire reliable data. That is the fifth-highest figure for any country in the world, after Honduras, El Salvador, Cote d'Ivoire, and Jamaica. Caracas received the distinction as the major city with the highest murder rate in the world, at 122 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Venezuela, a country with approximately 28 million inhabitants, suffered more murders than the United States in 2010, according to FBI data, perhaps as much as 35% more. Kidnappings have also soared recently. Only a tiny percentage of kidnappings are ever reported to authorities, both in order to comply with kidnappers' demands and because the police here is beyond unreliable. Nevertheless the trend is unmistakable. Below is a chart with data on kidnapping in Venezuela dating back to 1986 using figures from its national police, an anti-kidnapping organization, and the Ministry of Justice and the Interior. You can be certain that the numbers do not overstate the problem, and people whom I have asked estimate that reported kidnappings account for between 3-12% of the actual total.

Other forms of crime are experiencing similar trends. In some countries figures such as these can be attributed in large measure to external factors. In the Americas in particular drug trafficking often is responsible for surges in violent crime as transnational trafficking organizations overwhelm the resources of the state. Yet in Venezuela this is largely not the case. While Venezuela is a major transit point on drug trafficking routes, with shipments of cocaine and other drugs often arriving here from their origins and then departing for Europe (often via West Africa) and the United States (often via Central America or the Caribbean), it is not home to big cartels engaging in large-scale violence. Instead the violent crime seems to be attributable mostly to the utter disinterest and incompetence of the police, rising inequality and poverty despite the rhetoric from the Chávez administration, and a lack of opportunities for gainful employment.

A useful exercise is to compare Venezuela to its neighbor to the west. Not to pick on Colombia, but that country has a long history of violence and armed struggle. Indeed in a Latin American Politics class I took in college, the defining characteristic of Colombian politics was taught to be the near-constant presence of violence, dating back to the 19th century. Venezuela, on the other hand, has no such history. It has enjoyed a relatively robust democracy since 1958 (at least until Chávez came to power), and besides a brief and wildly unsuccessful attempt to imitate the success of Fidel Castro by a small group of urban guerrillas in the early 1960's, it has not fought any internal campaigns or external wars since the 1860's. As recently as a decade ago the Colombian state appeared on the verge of collapse against the violent insurrection of the FARC while Venezuela faced no such threats. As the chart below shows, this was no anomaly.

It should be noted that this chart comes from the campaign of opposition candidate Leopoldo López and therefore the data may be unsympathetic toward Venezuela. I believe, however, that is likely more accurate than official figures.

In a later post I will write about the consequences of this insecurity on daily life. For now, though, I want to raise the issue of how it affects the presidential campaign this year. If President Obama seems to face decidedly unfavorable re-election conditions when official unemployment is close to 9%, economic growth is low, and the budget deficit high, one would think that this near-catastrophic level of violent crime would make Chávez’s prospects even bleaker. This should be the case especially when taking into account that Chávez cannot as easily pin any blame for the problem on his predecessor since he has been in power since 1999 and since in recent years he has benefited from historically-high oil prices.

It is striking, therefore, that Chávez addresses the problem so minimally, and that voters do not hold him more accountable. Of course it is not surprising that the President elects to criticize and blame external enemies, usually the United States, for Venezuela’s problems to rally support and deflect criticism. Nor is it surprising that his opponents will harp on the country’s weaknesses more than the administration responsible for them. Yet while Chávez loves to talk about and make dramatic acts to provide more housing and food for the poor and end inequality, he appears strangely reticent to address the issues of crime and security. This seems to me to be a non-partisan issue, and one that the President would derive just as much advantage from ameliorating as the opposition. As an example, a relatively simple and hugely beneficial first step that the administration could take would be to raise the pay of the police. One reason that the police is currently so useless is that its members are compensated so poorly. As a result they often resort to accepting bribes, selling their firearms, and even engaging in criminal activity themselves to raise their incomes. I have asked many people why Chávez does not do this and have yet to receive a convincing answer. Instead he continues to emphasize other priorities as the following chart comparing proposed spending increases in the 2012 budget in arms spending to that of citizen security initiatives shows.

For now, though, the issue of insecurity, while prevalent, does not dominate the political discussion. Opposition candidates discuss it repeatedly, but chavistas still do so only sporadically. Citizens discuss crime and safety matters amongst themselves at great length, but rarely have I heard someone express any expectation that the electoral process can become a means of affecting change in the subject. My own analysis is that if the opposition manages to make violence and security the central talking point of the elections this fall, then they may have a slight chance of pulling off a surprise. If Chávez is able to escape focus on his biggest weakness then his re-election is all but assured. Regardless, Venezuelans face a difficult time ahead trying to tackle this most serious of issues.