CARACAS, (Reuters) – The socialist movement built by Venezuela’s former president Hugo Chavez risks imploding if corruption, inefficiency and an economic crisis are not tamed, a dissenting faction of the ruling Socialist Party says. “The revolutionary process is in danger, it’s falling apart,” warned Gonzalo Gomez Freire, a leader of Marea Socialista, or “Socialist Tide”, a small but vocal group of leftist intellectuals critical of President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
Chavez handpicked Maduro as his successor before he died of cancer in March 2013 and Maduro went on to win a presidential election the following month.
But he is now under intense pressure with an economy in recession, shortages of basic goods and medicines, annual inflation above 60 percent and sky-high crime.
Maduro lacks Chavez’s charisma and his approval rating has dropped to around 35 percent.
The Marea Socialista group relentlessly chides Maduro’s government for enrichment of senior officials, top-heavy decision-making and what it sees as the abandonment of revolutionary purity.
“What we have now is deterioration … This is Chavismo’s worst moment ever,” Gomez said in an interview with Reuters this week at an imposing state-run hotel in central Caracas.
To be sure, Marea Socialista remains a niche within the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and does not pose a major threat to Maduro in itself. But its criticism is garnering plenty of attention in the volatile post-Chavez era, and analysts say it may be a harbinger of future splits.
