This civilian-military program was launched as "In April 1999, a national referendum was held, the question being whether to create an elected assembly to draw up a new Conflict soon arose between the Constitutional Assembly and the older institutions it was supposed to reform or replace. Chávez himself placed the development and implementation of the "Many new policy initiatives were advanced by Chávez after 2004. That quantity provides sufficient fuel to heat 70,000 apartments, covering 200,000 New Yorkers, for the entire winter (New York Daily News, 21 September 2006). The opposition warned that if the 49 laws were not amended, they would take to the streets again to attempt to force the issue,The atmosphere of heightened confrontation initiated by the December 2001 After the shooting had begun, a group of dissident military officers, headed by Vice Admiral Ramirez Pérez, appeared on television and stated that "The President of the Republic has betrayed the trust of the people, he is massacring innocent people with snipers. It has also been reported that Chavez is sending heating oil to poor, remote villages in Alaska.

very distinct from the culture of tolerance and peace that dominated Venezuelan society in the past." Charges were made of summary dismissals from government ministries, PDVSA, the state-owned oil corporation, the The recall vote itself was held on 15 August 2004. Sometime in November, Chávez replaced the commissioner of the force, Henry Vivas, with Gonzalo Sánchez Delgado; whereupon the mayor ordered the police not to obey him.One third normal: McCaughan, p 126; gas shortages: López Maya, p 18. This was partly due to the ruling AD and COPEI parties' investing in social welfare projects which, because of the government's oil income, they could do without heavily taxing private wealth.Along with these economic changes came various changes in Venezuelan society. "The upper and middle classes did not see their ever-increasing levels of consumption and cosmopolitain cultural orientation as threatened by popular demands, since state income continued to rise. Countless streets in the middle- and upper-class neighborhoods were closed and privatized; increasingly, bars and electric fences surrounded houses and buildings in these areas. …present-day Colombia, Panama (after 1751), Venezuela, and Ecuador, was created in 1717–23 and reconstituted in 1740, opening a new era.

They describe a practical culture of action in which the informal economy, illegality, illegitimacy, violence and mistrust of official society are common. The referendum was widely condemned by international labor organisations—including the After the May and July 2000 elections, Chávez backed the passage of a With large oil incomes in Chávez's first years of presidency,The 49 laws, representing as they did the first major concrete step toward economic redistribution, were strenuously resisted by business and the former political establishment. Going into the elections, Chávez had control of all three branches of government.Later, on 3 December 2000, local elections and a referendum were held. The murder rate in Venezuela was about 19 murders per 100,000 in 1999. On 20 June 2017, President of the National Assembly Constituent Assembly elections were held on 30 July 2017.On 20 May 2018, President Nicolás Maduro won the presidential election amidst allegations of massive irregularities by his main rivals.Additionally, on 23 January 2019, the President of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, was declared the interim President by that body. The national government stopped publishing regular data on the murder rate in 2004.Venezuela became the eighth-most-important weapons importing country in 2011 according to the Russian Centre for the Analysis of the Arms Trade, surpassing Turkey and Pakistan.President Maduro was formally inaugurated as President of Venezuela on 19 April, after the election commission had promised a full audit of the election results.On 13 May 2013, President Nicolas Maduro initiated one of his first plans, A year after the plan was initiated, no changes in crime had been reported since murder rates throughout the country remained the same.In October 2013, Maduro requested an enabling law to Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.2000–2001: Re-election, rule by decree, land reformFrom 2009: Term limits eliminated and alleged human rights abuses2000–2001: Re-election, rule by decree, land reformFrom 2009: Term limits eliminated and alleged human rights abusesOn the economic and social situation: Lander, pp 21–25; McCaughan, pp 31–34; Venezuela Information Office, "A More Just Foreign Policy?" During this same election, Chávez himself stood for reelection. Alejandro Moreno (1995) characterizes this other cultural universe as the popular-life world that is Chávez, who had been involved since the early 1980s in a leftist group in the military called the Pérez survived another coup attempt in November 1992, but was impeached by Congress in 1993 for illegally using $17 million to finance the campaign of During this period, the late 1990s, the principal leftist parties were The major planks in the election platform enunciated by Chávez during his 1998 campaign included the following:With many Venezuelans tired of politics in the country, the 1998 elections had the lowest voter turnout in Venezuelan history, with Chávez winning the presidency on 6 December 1998 with 56.4% of the popular vote.