Chavez Threatens To Nationalize Banks That Support His Political Opponents

In the past, What’s Next has reported on previous threats by the Chávez administration to nationalize companies that do not acquiesce to his demands. One of his most common targets has been banks. Just last January, he vowed to expropriate banks that refused to aid a government agricultural program. A pugnacious Chávez called one bank’s president and threatened to nationalize his company “whenever I want.” In May 2011, Chávez expropriated lots, parcels and apartments belonging to banks under the control of Fogade, the national Deposits Guarantee and Bank Protection Fund.

Now, the cancer-stricken Chávez is far less lively, but equally keen on continuing his economically-damaging policy of expropriations. This time, however, his target is not companies who refuse to go along with his government policies, but those who he perceives as supporting “the opposition.”

“I have a list of private banks that are financing the opposition’s destabilizing plans,” said Chávez. “It wouldn’t be bad at all to issue a decree and bring those firms under state control. Large national and some international companies that earn more than enough money here.”

Aside from the fact that it’s oddly undemocratic to refer to one’s political opposition as “destabilizing,” Chávez has also proposed to ramp up the policies that continue to adversely impact his country’s economy. Price controls, expropriations and other policies have eroded Venezuela’s private sector as indicated by the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom, which ranked Venezuela’s economy 174 out of 179.