[THEGUARDIAN] Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro has failed his country. Picked by Hugo Chavez as successor just before his death in 2013, President Maduro has been an incompetent leader in hard times. He has failed to address the economic crisis triggered when the fall in the price of oil exposed the weaknesses of Chavismo, his predecessor’s ambitious experiment in poverty alleviation and social ownership. Now, in what was once South America’s richest country, more than four households in five are in poverty, twice the level of when he came to power. Babies and children die for lack of access to commonplace medicines. Murder and kidnapping for ransom are rife. Inflation is running above 800%; the economy is contracting sharply. Democracy itself is being eroded as the president defends his faltering grip on power. Weeks of protests have been met by state violence, semi-official vigilantes and, increasingly, counterattack from some opposition groupings. There is a wretched stalemate; and there is a real fear that violence could soon escalate out of control.Like many of its neighbours, Venezuela’s democrats have to overcome a troubled history of rule by elites with little concern for lifting people out of poverty or shared economic growth. For more than a decade, Chavez seemed to offer a better prospectus: decent housing, proper wages and a fairer future. But after his premature death, the fall in oil prices laid bare the old divisions. His detractors point to a mixture of corruption and his failure to set up a Norwegian-style wealth fund to invest some of an oil income that approached $1tn as causes of the crisis. His defenders accuse the old ruling elite and its supporters of sabotaging the revolution.
But in the past few days, there is a sense that a bridge has been crossed. For the first time, demonstrators have included people from the poorer parts of Caracas, the people who were at the heart of the Chavismo project. Mr Maduro is talking about resuming talks with the opposition, brokered by the Vatican. But there is deep cynicism about these overtures. The opposition suspect him of playing for time, and remember bitterly that the last time they placed their trust in the Vatican’s involvement the talks soon foundered on the president’s obduracy.