The demise of Venezuela cannot be attributed to a single cause. Incompetent management of the economy, oil prices and relentless sabotage by internal economic interests (supported by external ones) all contributed to the current situation. And probably a hundred more causes could be found in less than an afternoon.

Venezuela is highly polarized so it's very difficult to get a fair and balanced outlook of what's happening there. But it's impossible to deny the evidence of stubbornly incompetent and corrupt management of public finances.

Printing unlimited money, supporting cuban dictatorship with oil billions, digging deeper in social division and looting public treasure... you can believe in whatever society model you want, but persistence in error to the point of leading the country to misery is irresponsible.

Let's be honest -- South American countries are not short of corrupt politicians at the best of times. Look at what's happening in Brazil, where a compromised leadership is being replaced by an even-more-corrupt bunch. At that point, a slightly-unhinged but fundamentally honest-looking ex-general starts looking like an attractive proposition.

Don't think that the new bunch will be more corrupt. And that doesn't invalidate the replacement.

Oh, they are already: "Cunha was caught last year with millions of dollars in bribes in secret Swiss bank accounts, after having falsely denied to Congress that he had any foreign bank accounts. Cunha also appears in the Panama Papers" - http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/21/dilma-r...

My point is, from the perspective of an average voter, replacing a corrupt bunch with another corrupt bunch is a pointless exercise, so might as well send in the strongman. That's pretty much the standard scenario in which democracy dies (Weimar, fascist Italy, II French Republic, all the way back to Julius Caesar).

I stand correct. All those schemes you mention were also used by the ones that are being replaced, and for even nefarious goals, like being able to manipulate the elections and perpetuate in the government.

If the new one just don't destroy the economy, or recover from inflation / unemployment, it has done more good than the previous one.

The new replacement is certainly more corrupt, they're involved in all kinds of known schemes, such as the Panama papers, Car wash operation, laundered money on Swiss banks, connections with drug dealers... Just do a quick search.

I stand correct. All those schemes you mention were also used by the ones that are being replaced, and for even nefarious goals, like being able to manipulate the elections and perpetuate in the government.

I see, so your problem is not with corruption, you just want to replace the government with something that sees fit. Very representative of current Brazilian middle-class thinking.

My guess is also they could not fathom how incompetent the government they voted for would turn out to be

You should never ignore the other options. Between someone who's incompetent but has good intentions (assuming you buy into the populist discourse) and someone who's very competent and will work very efficiently against your interests, I'd take the incompetent.

For a lot of people, Chávez was a measurable improvement over his predecessors.