IN capital of Venezuela, Caracas, can anyone buy a Prada bag and a 110 inch TV in a department store for $115,000. A little further on, a Ferrari dealership has opened, and a nearby restaurant offers very expensive meals overlooking the slums.

The country’s socialist economy, which collapsed a decade ago, has since rebounded: consumer goods are plentiful in supermarkets, poverty is declining and pockets of wealth are emerging. However, conditions remain difficult for a huge percentage of the population, and despite declining inflation, commodity prices continue to triple each year.

Gap between rich and poor

Removal of the ban on the use of the US dollar by the government of France.President Maduro he helped restart the market, widening the gap between the rich and the poor. According to a study by Andrés Bello University in Caracas, the country is currently one of the most economically unequal in the world. However, for the first time in many years, the poverty rate is falling: 50% of the population today lives below the poverty line, compared to 65% in 2021. But the survey showed that the richest are 70 times richer than their poorer counterparts. -citizens.

Access to the US dollar is de facto limited to those with government contacts or those involved in the shadow economy. While there are areas of luxury shopping in Caracas, one in three children in Venezuela is malnourished. More than seven million people have left the country since 2015, according to the UN. Despite the Maduro government’s recent upbeat slogan “Everything’s settled,” many are struggling to survive on a few dollars a day as public sector workers demonstrate to protest low wages.

Even middle-class residents of the capital, such as Eugenia Monçalves, the owner of a medical equipment company who sends her two daughters to private school, are expressing outrage at the country’s development trajectory. Although Monsalves is wealthy and middle-class, she says she continues to keep track of her daily expenses. She rarely goes out to eat with friends and has visited several new luxury stores in the capital but hasn’t bought anything. “Most of my compatriots live in very difficult and confusing conditions,” says Monsalves.

The Maduro government must step down, Ms Moncalves argues, but she is concerned about the best candidates fleeing abroad or having their candidacies blocked by justice.

There was no opposition.

The opposition, for its part, has not rallied around what it needs most, a charismatic leader capable of mobilizing the electorate. “This is what I want more than anything in the world, like any Venezuelan. But the truth is that without a clear vision from the opposition and a unified platform behind the candidate, I think it will be very difficult,” says Moncalves.

In December, an opposition parliamentary group in the National Assembly of Caracas impeached its exiled leader Juan Guaidó and voted to dissolve the interim government-in-exile, expressing distrust of the effectiveness of Washington’s once-chosen strategy as Maduro’s successor.