Less than two weeks ago, I watched as ballots were being counted in Colombia’s presidential election.
This election has had the surrounding countries sitting on the edges of their seats, waiting to see how it will shape their own upcoming elections.
And, the election still isn’t finalized—with neither candidate gaining over 50%, a second vote is being held on June 17.
While I can’t pretend to be an expert on Colombian politics, I recognize that this election is important. Especially in light of Venezuela’s recent election last month.
Last month, Venezuela re-elected their president Nicolas Maduro for his second six year term. Having served in Hugo Chavez’s party—the United Socialist Party, including a stint as Vice President, Maduro succeeded Hugo Chavez upon his death in 2013 and was elected to office a month later.
Many question the validity of his re-election with the lowest voter turnout in recent history.
Since Maduro was elected, Venezuela’s economy has steadily decreased while poverty, hunger, inflation, and crime have all risen.
These economic problems have deep roots in the country’s oil industry and the economic policies of his predecessor, Hugo Chavez.
Venezuela holds the world’s largest oil reserves.
It became the world’s largest oil exporter in 1928 which led to an increase in their currency’s value, but also made it more expensive for other countries to import other products from Venezuela—stifling other industries and causing oil to account for 95% of the country’s exports and leaving them mostly dependent on the oil market for economic stability.
Following the Second World War, the Middle East began exporting massive amounts of oil as well, increasing supply to above the level of demand and causing prices to fall.
In 1960, OPEC was formed to help bring oil prices back up to reasonable levels by implementing export quotas.
In the 1980s, US trade with many Middle Eastern companies halted due to conflict and Venezuela’s revenue once again skyrocketed and the industry became nationalized—meaning the revenue from the oil industry funded government programs.
Because oil prices had risen, many OPEC members began breaking their quotas to increase their revenues and the global market was once again flooded with an oversupply of oil leading to another price crash.
Venezuela didn’t begin to see a recovery from this crash until Hugo Chavez took power in 1999, as the oil industry was refueled by developing nations such as India and China.
As oil money once again came pouring in, Chavez invested the money in his social programs—offering subsides to the poor, and aiding the education and healthcare systems. Chavez’s reforms made significant strides in helping the nation’s poor, but these reforms came with a cost.
Chavez’s reforms cost more than the oil industry was taking in, which led to overspending and national debt.
In a effort to keep the value of Venezuela’s currency, Chavez required people to exchange currency through the government and fixed the conversion rate.
Since 2014, oil prices have been falling. With oil accounting for 95% of Venezuela’s exports, this means Venezuela’s revenue has been falling as well.
Yet, Venezuela’s President Maduro has kept Chavez’s social programs running, leading the country into further debt.
With the increasing debt, Venezuela has faced a shortage of dollars and refuses to sell them to it’s citizens which has led to an explosion in black market currency trading.
Since 2014, inflation rates have soared up to around 2,000%.
Maduro has continued to borrow and print more money, and price controls have done little to stop the soaring inflation rates.
Store owners now weigh money rather than counting it.
With the turbulent value of Venezuela’s currency, they are unable to import basic goods from other countries and food shortages are rampant throughout the country.
Even those with money are unable to buy food and medicine as the store shelves remain empty.
Over the last few years, Venezuela’s GDP has dropped faster than the US during the Great Depression.
Government subsidies hardly make a dent in the needs of the people as food and medicine are inaccessible to most Venezuelans.
Corruption runs rampant, and crime rates have risen drastically.
Almost a million Venezuelans have attempted to cross the border to Colombia to buy basic goods.
Just looking at the statistics of this humanitarian crisis, sometimes it is hard to feel empathy—that is it until you put a face on it.
For me, that came in the form of a father and his four young children.
One morning last week, he sat down to eat breakfast with us and showed us his wife’s Venezuelan ID card.
That afternoon, he buried her remains.
She had been battling cancer, and had been unable to receive treatment due to the soaring inflation and low supply of medicine in Venezuela.
For two years, he gathered documents in attempts to leave Venezuela. Obtaining a work visa to the United States proved to be too difficult, so he packed up his family and moved them across the border to Colombia in December of 2017.
He got a job in construction to pay for his wife’s medical bills and provide for his four young children, but her condition worsened and she lost her battle with cancer not long after arriving here in Colombia.
He loves his children fiercely and fights hard to provide for them in the wake of this tragedy.
Not long after his wife’s death, he was taken under the wing of our host, Lucy.
Thirteen years ago, Lucy and her husband Ricardo began their ministry—Formavida—ministering to an impoverished area in Bogota that had been overridden by drugs, gangs, and violence.
They started a soup kitchen—feeding hundreds. They prayed against the violence that defined the community and trusted that the Lord would provide the funds for a church to be built. Ricardo left his job and began construction under the Lord’s provision.
Four years ago, they began OASIS, an afterschool program that we’ve been working with the past two weeks.
Today, this father and his young children receive three meals a day through Lucy, and his children are enrolled in school.
[If you would like to help Lucy continue to assist other families who are in need in Bogota, you can donate HERE]
As this election faces Colombia, over 50% of Colombians fear becoming “a second Venezuela.”
Colombia also is a large oil exporter, and presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M19 communist rebel group and former mayor of Bogota, plans to increase spending on education and healthcare. With similarities drawn to Chavez, many fear that the economic crisis in Venezuela will be repeated in Colombia if he is elected.
