Cato Institute: Chavez's Actions Eroding Venezuela's Credibility, Economy

Cato Institute: Chavez's Actions Eroding Venezuela's Credibility, Economy

WASHINGTON, May 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This weekend, Hugo Chavez clamped down on Venezuela's media, sparking protests in Caracas that were quickly met with violence by the police. Cato scholars are available to discuss Chavez's egregious centralization of power.

Gustavo Coronel, author of the recent Cato Institute study "Corruption, Mismanagement, and Abuse of Power in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela," comments:

"Hugo Chavez's recent actions -- including his increasing control over the Orinoco oil fields without prompt or clear compensation to foreign operators, the recent takeovers of CANTV, the Caracas Electricity Company, and Venezuela's largest telephone company, the denial of a government broadcasting permit to opposition TV station Radio Caracas TV and concurrent confiscation of the station's equipment -- are clear signs of Chavez's disdain for democracy and free enterprise and of the emergence in Venezuela of a totalitarian political regime. Chavez's actions have been taken against the wishes of over 80% of the Venezuelan population and have received the overwhelming rejection of international public opinion. At this moment thousands of Venezuelans are in the streets protesting vigorously against this chain of arbitrary actions."

He concludes: "As a result of Chavez's departure from democratic principles, both the financial credibility and prestige of his government have significantly weakened -- as evidenced by the fall of Venezuelan bonds in the international financial markets and the current losses suffered by the Caracas Stock Exchange."

Ian Vasquez, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, comments:

"If there were any doubts about the intolerant nature of the Chavez regime, the closing of RCTV should eliminate them once and for all. That action follows a pattern in which Chavez has increasingly concentrated power in his own hands and long ago abandoned the substance of democracy. Unfortunately, the fact that the move against RCTV was highly unpopular will probably have little effect. Power has become so centralized in Venezuela that there are no checks and balances in a government where the executive controls the congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral committee, the military, vast amounts of oil wealth, much of the private sector because of capital controls and nationalizations, and, increasingly, the media. Under those conditions, effective protest is extremely difficult."

-- Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/

-- "Corruption, Mismanagement, and Abuse of Power in Hugo Chavez's
Venezuela": http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6787

-- Ian Vasquez, director, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity:

http://www.cato.org/people/vasquez.html

The Cato Institute is a nonpartisan public policy research foundation dedicated to broadening policy debate consistent with the traditional American principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.

Website: http://www.cato.org

Source: Cato Institute

CONTACT: Nicole Kurokawa, media relations manager, +1-202-218-4613,
nkurokawa@cato.org, or Evans Pierre, director of broadcasting,
+1-202-789-5204, epierre@cato.org, both of the Cato Institute

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