Spanish
Maracaibo (Venezuela).- A group of opponents from the Movimiento Zulia Humana and also former political prisoners demanded this Tuesday that a date be set to hold elections in Venezuela and that the minimum wage, frozen since 2022 and equivalent today to 27 cents of a dollar, be increased, according to the exchange rate of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV).
"We demand it today: that the date of the elections be set, so that Venezuelans can have free and transparent elections. It is a necessity to have the date today," said Professor Eduardo Labrador during a press conference in the city of Maracaibo, in the northwest of the country.
Beside him, Rodrigo Cabezas -economist and former Minister of Finance during the government of the late President Hugo Chávez (1999-2013)- advocated for an increase in the minimum wage and said that it is possible. In this regard, he stated that the State can increase wages through "economic policies", although he avoided specifying an amount by pointing out that the lack of public data prevents the necessary calculations from being made. He also warned that in Venezuela there was "galloping inflation" between March of last year and the same month of 2026, a stage prior to hyperinflation, a phenomenon that the country has already experienced. However, he clarified that Venezuela is not in hyperinflation: "There is no hyperinflation and we hope there won't be," he stressed. Between 2017 and 2021, Venezuela experienced hyperinflation with monthly increases of up to three digits - the highest being 196.6% in January 2019 - which rapidly reduced the purchasing power of workers and the value of the bolivar, the local currency, leading the country to unofficially adopt the US dollar as a way to protect itself from this crisis. Last week, the acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, announced that next May 1st she will make a "responsible" increase without specifying if it is the minimum wage or an income received by public workers made up of bonuses and which was increased last month.The Executive has focused its salary policy on the payment of two bonuses for public workers that do not affect labor benefits and that total $190, both deposited in bolivars at the official exchange rate.
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According to the Documentation and Analysis Center of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers, a family of five people needed $692.32 in March to cover basic food expenses, an increase of 7.2% compared to the previous month, when it was calculated at $645.6. To date, Venezuelan authorities have put the electoral issue on the back burner, after prioritizing the economy. On March 2nd, the President of Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, indicated that it was not "urgent" to define a date for elections in the country.
