President Chávez came to power promising to harness Venezuela’s vast oil resources to create a 21st-century nation in which no one was deprived. Now, with water and electricity shortages and soaring crime and inflation, even his ardent supporters are beginning to turn away.
In Caracas, which has the world’s highest murder rates and runaway food prices, residents now face two days a week without water until May next year as the Government imposes rationing to cope with a 25 per cent shortfall in supply.
Mr Chávez blames “El Niño” droughts and capitalist excess.
“What will the rich fill their swimming pools with?” he jibed recently. “With the water that is denied inhabitants in the poor neighbourhoods.”
He painted the cuts as a necessary sacrifice, insisting that showers longer than three minutes were self-indulgent. Others blame government neglect of infrastructure and resource mismanagement. In Petare, Caracas’s largest barrio, most fault the authorities rather than the bourgeoisie. Much of the barrio has been without water for more than two months, forcing residents to take desperate measures.
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President Chávez came to power promising to harness Venezuela’s vast oil resources to create a 21st-century nation in which no one was deprived. Now, with water and electricity shortages and soaring crime and inflation, even his ardent supporters are beginning to turn away.
