MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Feeling unhappy, try Orwellian Venezuela: Maduro creates the “Supreme Happiness” office

Maduro announced the initiative ahead of the December municipal elections which could bring surprises to food short Venezuela

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the creation of the “Supreme Happiness Under Secretary” to address social debt shortcomings and which was in honor of the late Commandant and president Hugo Chavez and the country's liberator, Simon Bolivar.

“Comrade Rafael Rios will be responsible for implementing and coordinating the famous missions created by our 'perpetual Commandant' with the purpose of ensuring 'supreme social happiness'” said Maduro on a national address from the Miraflores Palace. Rios is a former lawmaker and military.

The Orwellian and Kim Il Sung style announcements coincide with the creation of the “Loyalty and Love to Hugo Chavez Day” and come a few weeks ahead of the 8 December municipal elections which could bring surprises to the Bolivarian revolution ravaged by the most serious economic shortcomings in a decade particularly the lack of sufficient food and basics in the country's stores.

“These missions we have to take them to reach heaven, which is our eternal thanks to Chavez”, said Maduro underlining it's another 'social advance in the struggle against the perfidy of capitalism“.

”The supreme happiness office will look after our handicapped brothers and sisters, those who are homeless, our old folks, our children, addressing the most sublime, the most sensitive, the most loved for all those who consider themselves Bolivarian revolutionaries“.

But the presidential decision is nothing new: the so called social missions which existed from the very first moment of the Chavez revolution eroded with time gobbled by corruption and bureaucracy. However Chavez use to resuscitate the cadaver before election campaigns.

Maduro admitted the shortcomings: ”we must improve the missions, with the three 'r' review, rectification and re-launching, so that they reach all children, the homeless children we can still see every day in the streets“.

Street or homeless children was one of the battle cries of Chavez during his fourteen years in office including his famous statement: ”I will not allow a single child in the streets, and if so, I will resign to my name Hugo Chavez“. However the situation is spastic with sudden bursts of improvement and then again falls back.

”A Socialist, Christian, humanist state as the one we are building needs a quality leap in caring for our children and old folks“, insisted Maduro who also created another 'supreme happiness' office under the name of ”Sovereign People” to combat pending social debts and exclusion. Here again another military officer will be responsible.

This way military officers loyal to former president Chavez keep taking over of new government spaces. General Hebert Garcia Plaza, was named president of the Superior Office for the Defense of the Economy, and the Strategic Superior Centre for Homeland Security and Protection is headed by General Gustavo Gonzalez.