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Venezuelan Opposition Cancels Meeting With Government as Economy Implodes

Venezuela's economy is in shambles. Are its peace talks, too?

By Emily Tamkin, a global affairs journalist and the author of The Influence of Soros and Bad Jews.

December 6, 2016, 2:58 PM

Venezuela’s Vatican-backed peace talks are meant to ease the country’s political tensions. So far, they have failed to do so, and on Tuesday, the degree of that failure became clearer.

Jesus Torrealba, spokesperson for the political opposition, said on Tuesday it wouldn’t be meeting with the government because the government has so far refused to make any concessions, such as releasing political prisoners. The opposition, for its part, suspended planned street protests in a bid to nudge the peace talks along. It is unclear when the talks will resume, or when they were expected to conclude. The longer they go on, some argue, Maduro can hold onto power and avoid early elections.

But Venezuelan politics is far from the country’s worst feature right now. The Venezuelan bolívar is so inflated that cashiers are weighing, not counting, banknotes. On Sunday, the central bank of Venezuela announced that it would issue larger-denomination banknotes — that is, bills from 500 to 20,000 bolívars. This may, as the bank said, “facilitate commercial transactions,” but will not solve the country’s deep-rooted fiscal problems. And the economic woes are only going to be exacerbated after Mercosur, a regional economic group including Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay, suspended Venezuela for violating Mercosur’s democratic principles.

The economic misery, not unlike President Nicolás Maduro’s refusal to hold early elections or make concessions to the opposition, is hitting Venezuelans hard. Women, desperate to raise enough cash to buy hard-to-find food and medicine, are reportedly crossing into Colombia to sell their hair. Many have taken to buying their food there, too, as non-subsidized food in Venezuela has gotten too expensive.

The Venezuelan government is not totally AWOL, though. On Monday, its U.N. ambassador joined Russia and China to reject, for the sixth time, a Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day humanitarian ceasefire in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo.

Photo credit: TIZIANA FABI/AFP/Getty Images

Emily Tamkin is a global affairs journalist and the author of The Influence of Soros and Bad Jews. Twitter: @emilyctamkin