Last July 17, VenAmCham in Monagas managed to gather together a group of regional executives to listen to economist Luís Vicente León, Datanálisis partner, who, as usual, fully met the attendees’ expectations with an interesting speech in which he described the different scenarios that, according to his projections, could play out in the country in the short and medium term.

The analyzed scenarios were based on Venezuela’s international, institutional, economic and political aspects. On the economic matter, the progress in all the sectors was presented, being construction and banking the sectors with the highest growth. León pointed out that the national government needs the private sector to prevent supply from discouraging consumption; and, consequently, to prevent an environment that goes against the leader-people connection from generating. León said that even though some companies have been nationalized, he thinks that nationalization will be carried out just for those companies considered strategic for strengthening the model the government defines as the XXI Century Socialism.

Luis Vicente León does not believe Venezuela could head towards a communist model, since the Venezuelan people reject many of the practices of this style of governance and, consequently, although there is an important relationship between the leader and the mass, this relation has decreased when measures threatening people’s freedom and rights are adopted. RCTV closing represented an example that caused a 9% decrease in the President’s popularity; however, he still keeps the same advantage margin with which he won the first presidential elections.

He briefly said that the constitutional reform seeks indefinite re-election as one of its most relevant aspects; however, like RCTV closing, this practice of power perpetuation is rejected by 70% of the population. On the educational matter, he emphasized that this is one of the ways of forming the socialist man: through ideological indoctrination; but Luís Vicente León considers that as far as this threatens parents’ custody of their children, even a considerable number of government followers will reject this measure.

To conclude, the scenarios presented by León were based on a strict political control: Scenario 1 “Metastasis" / Scenario 2 "Encapsulated"

Controversial and shocking terms to describe the course of the country; however, let’s remember this is the economist’s view when analyzing his own results.