Where is Venezuela going with a million inflation?

Will it trigger a social explosion? Will it force the government to free the economy? Venezuela's inflation would reach one million percent this year, according to an IMF projection that poses volatile scenarios with one certainty: the dramatic deterioration of living conditions.

Today, the basic income of a Venezuelan dollar of 1.5 dollars at the black market rate barely reaches a kilo of chicken. Meanwhile, public finances languish due to the collapse of oil production, which contributes to 96% of revenues.

The gloomy outlook of the International Monetary Fund – with a drop in GDP of 18% – does not surprise those suffering from the crisis in their own flesh.

"Nothing surprises me anymore, day by day, things increase, it's not progressive, it's exponential," commented Marcos Salazar in an interview while eating, on a booth of the street, a hamburger that cost him a minimum wage. 31-year-old teacher, survives with three jobs and family remittances.

It is estimated that 1.6 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2016 in the face of the debacle that, according to the main universities of the country, has increased poverty to 87% in 2017.

The IMF estimates that this exodus will intensify, in addition, because of the shortage of food and medicine and the deterioration of public services, with a strong impact in the region.

According to OPEC, the output of the national oil company, almost the only source of foreign exchange, went from 3.2 million barrels per day (mbd) in 2008 to 1.5 million barrels in June, preventing profit from the price recovery.

"Hyperinflation has not been accompanied by far-reaching economic reforms, so all the cases are over," said Henkel García, director of the econometrics office, noting that these phenomena are not maintained permanently, as the case of Zimbabwe has shown.

The IMF provides, however, that Nicolás Maduro's left-wing government will continue to cover the deficit with monetary financing, the promoter of inflation. The monetary base has been multiplied by 250 over the past two years, according to the Central Bank.

Maduro, whose re-election on May 20 is unknown to much of the international community, faces the challenge of a tightrope walker not to lose control.

Faced with growing protests from state employees for salary improvements and citizens who are tired of ongoing failures in public services. These demonstrations, however, are atomized and do not have the direction of the opposition, for the moment disarticulated and with several leaders imprisoned or exiled.

For the political scientist Miguel Martínez Meucci, "the main threat to Maduro is still the fracture of the armed forces", whose high command, with great political and economic power, swears allegiance to him. "Although a social epidemic may propitiate, the regime works night and day to quell both."

The Chavismo leaders have raised their voices in recent days to demand an economic turn. These tensions may appear at the ruling party's congress, which begins on Saturday.