By the end of 2020, Venezuela’s per capita income will have shrunk to less than one-third of what it was when President Hugo Chávez died in office in 2013. This contraction—equivalent to three Great Depressions—is the largest documented in Latin American economic history and one of the ten largest in world history. More than five million people—or around one-sixth of the population—have left the country, and poverty rates have tripled. A country rarely suffers such a precipitous deterioration of living standards outside of wartime, says Francisco Rodriguez in an article published by Foreign Affairs.

Yet Venezuela’s autocrat, Nicolás Maduro, remains firmly ensconced in the Miraflores Presidential Palace. He has refused to budge despite an economic and humanitarian crisis larger than any the continent has ever seen, punitive oil sanctions, and the fact that 58 countries recognize his rival Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president. In fact, Maduro is now the second-longest-serving head of state in all of Latin America (behind Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, whom the United States has also unsuccessfully tried to drive out of power).

Read the complete article.

FRANCISCO RODRÍGUEZ is Director and Founder of Oil for Venezuela and a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame.