Four Years After Chavez’s Death, Venezuela Sinks Deeper into the Abyss

Venezuela’s dictatorship has tried to turn the fourth anniversary of Hugo Chávez’s death into a mystical experience of sorts—and a dose of much-needed political oxygen. Not a simple task in a country with inflation predicted to run at 1,600 percent, an economic growth rate of negative ten percent, a painful shortage of the most basic stuff, the highest crime rate in the world (120 murders for every 100,000 residents), and three-quarters of the people telling pollsters they repudiate the government.