MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela's Maduro feels worthy of Nobel Prize in Economics

Maduro insisted the challenges ahead included “self-sufficiency with national production and becoming a food exporter to the world”

Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro Thursday unleashed anger worldwide when he claimed his government deserved the Nobel Prize in Economics, which earned him a barrage of negative comments on social media.

Maduro explained that his administration had overcome “the blockade and sanctions” imposed by the United States. If not the Swedish decoration, Maduro did secure several labels for himself, most of them highlighting his “cynicism.”

“In the face of the sanctions, what we did was to stand up; to put our brains into it; to look for the best world advisors in economy, in currency, in finances, in fiscal policies, in productive policies; and today we can say that we deserve the Nobel Prize in Economics because we have moved forward on our own, with the Bolivarian Economic Agenda and the 18 engines,” Maduro said.

“The blockade accelerated the process of overcoming the oil rentier economy and made a new diversified economy begin to emerge, with virtuous cycles to produce food, goods, services, and energy,” he went on.

In Maduro's view, what Venezuela has endured was due to “the wickedness of those who asked for criminal sanctions” and had nothing to do with the PSUV's uninterrupted rule of over two decades.

Maduro insisted that the challenges of the Venezuelan economy include “self-sufficiency with national production and becoming a food exporter to the world”.

He also stressed Venezuelans who left the country en masse were living in worse conditions abroad than those they left behind.

“There are many cases in which the mother or relatives who stayed here are sending money to the Venezuelans to pay for the 20 square meter house in Lima or Chile,” he went on.

Former political prisoner Antonio Ledezma, now in exile in Spain, said Maduro's prize would “be for turning a very rich country into a very poor one.”

“The cynicism of these dictators has no limits,” he added.

After a de facto dollarization, Venezuela is beginning to come out from persistent hyperinflation. The minimum monthly wage locally is about US$ 30. According to the 2021 Living Conditions Survey (ENCOVI) by the Andrés Bello Catholic University, 94% of the population is in poverty and 76% in extreme poverty.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) also found that Venezuela, together with Cuba and Haiti, were the countries with the worst economic performance during 2021 in Latin America.