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Venezuela faces several issues that affect the lives of everyday people under Chávez. Below, we examine the top issues that Venezuelans will consider when heading to the polls in October.

THE ECONOMY: As with the U.S. and the rest of the world, the global recession battered the Venezuelan economy. Unlike many countries, however, Venezuela’s unemployment rate has continued to rise. It now stands at 12.1 percent. Soaring inflation – which topped 27 percent last year – has devalued the national currency and further crippled Venezuelans’ purchasing power.

The Chávez government has responded by manipulating exchange rates and controlling prices. And, to curb what he terms private industry excess and inefficiency, Chávez has been busily nationalizing swaths of Venezuela’s private sector. Independent analysis suggests that these policies have, in reality, exacerbated the problem and cost Venezuela more than 11 percent of its Gross Domestic Product between 2005 and 2010. For example, of the 2.5 million hectares of farmland seized by the government since 1999, all but 50,000 remain idle. This has led to severe shortages that now force Venezuela to import many necessary goods, including rice, corn, coffee and sugar (Venezuela imports 40% of its rice and corn, 56% of its coffee, and 60% of its sugar).

Due in large part to these policies, The World Bank in 2011 ranked Venezuela 172 out of 183 countries sampled in terms of places to do business, behind Iraq (#166) and Afghanistan (#167).

The bottom line: persistent unemployment, soaring inflation and dependence on costly imports mean that Venezuelans will have plenty on their minds as they head to the polls this year.

CRIME: Crime in Venezuela made U.S. headlines last year when Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos was “express kidnapped” from his home in Caracas and held for ransom in November. Unfortunately for Venezuelans, celebrity abductions tell but a fraction of the tale. In all, more than 19,000 people were killed in Venezuela last year. The murder rate has doubled since Chávez took office, and now twice the homicide rate of nearby Colombia. Robberies and kidnappings have also increased, making 2011 the most violent year in the country’s history. Even foreign diplomats are threatened: last November, a Chilean consul was shot and wounded by kidnappers; in January, the Mexican ambassador was abducted along with his wife.

In bragging about his accomplishments, President Chávez has claimed to have reduced “criminality” during his tenure. The facts do not bear him out, but he is correct to view the issue as a liability. Polls suggest that crime ranks as a leading concern among Venezuelans ahead of the elections. And nowhere is “criminality” more rampant than in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, which Reuters has reported “is on a statistical par with some conflict zones as one of the most dangerous cities in the world.”

HOUSING AND INFRASTRUCTURE: When he took office in 1999, President Chávez pledged to make housing a top priority of his administration. Since he gained power, however, housing construction has slowed considerably. Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics now estimates the country’s housing deficit exceeds 2.5 million homes. In typical fashion, President Chávez has responded to the crisis by blaming the private sector, taking the extraordinary step of seizing private homes. Since 2005, there have been 365 of these “residential expropriations” in Venezuela. Chávez has sought to reverse negative perceptions by trumpeting a “Great Housing Mission” to build two million homes by 2017. Nevertheless, Venezuela’s shortage of homes has only worsened in recent years, and Venezuelans now list the housing crisis as one of their top concerns.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s infrastructure has crumbled. Transportation-related accidents have risen across-the-board. Whether by air – Venezuela has reportedly the most obsolete air fleet in the Americas – or by land – Jacuzzi-sized potholes are common sights on the country’s roadways – travelers face daily inconveniences and dangers.  The Chávez government has ramped up expropriations of the country’s transportation industry as well, but this has only worsened the situation.  Once-efficient public services, like the Caracas Metro, have become unreliable and dangerous. Chávez’s exchange rate controls have made it difficult to acquire spare parts, meaning that deteriorating ports, aircrafts and other machinery have gone years without repair.

CORRUPTION: Hugo Chávez won voters over in 1999 with a high-minded pledge to tackle public sector corruption. Over the last 13 years, however, corruption in Venezuela has reached unprecedented levels.  It afflicts the police and the military, who are often bribed by drug traffickers. It plagues the judiciary: Chávez  packed the country’s Supreme Court with allies in 2004. Since then, the Venezuelan judicial branch has served largely as a rubber stamp for the strongman’s agenda, even when that agenda conflicts with constitutionally enshrined rights, such as freedom of expression and association. Even after the opposition won 52 percent of the vote in the 2010 parliamentary elections, Chávez convinced the outgoing legislature to grant him authority to rule by edict for the next 18 months, thwarting the democratically elected assembly and turning Venezuela into a de facto dictatorship.

The international watchdog organization Transparency International ranked Chávez’s Venezuela tenth from the bottom (172) on its latest Corruption Perception Index. The World Justice Organization last year called the Chávez administration “the least accountable government in the world.”

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: While freedoms of speech and of the press are technically guaranteed by Venezuela’s constitution, in reality media face harassment if they report anything in opposition to Chávez’s administration. Freedom House ranks Venezuela at 166 out of 196 countries analyzed in terms of freedom of the press. Of the 35 countries in the Americas, Venezuela ranks 34^th, ironically surpassing only Cuba, the government structure idolized by Chávez.

From the 2007 closure of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), to the disabling of 34 radio stations, to the $2.16 million fine levied on the TV network Globovision for airing images of a June 2011 prison riot, the government has steadily dismantled Venezuela’s independent media; those outlets that remain are subject to harassment, license manipulation and threats of arbitrary detention. Defamation of the president carries a penalty of 30 years in prison. Furthermore, a law that took effect in December 2010 codified vague restrictions on media freedom and extended controls on broadcast media to the internet. The law also empowers the Venezuelan National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL) to manage digital services and impose significant fines and service suspensions.

More telling than the amount of independent media outlets Chávez has sanctioned or shut down is the number that he himself owns. Today, the Chávez government controls at least two national radio networks, six national television channels, 72 regional television stations and more than 600 radio stations across the country. Chávez’s grip on the media has allowed him to prevent his political opponents’ messages from gaining traction, even against the backdrop of a stagnant economy and widespread voter discontent.

CHÁVEZ’S UNCERTAIN HEALTH: A final issue, separate but hardly independent from the rest, hangs like a cloud over the October election: Hugo Chávez’s battle with cancer. Last summer, the president shocked Venezuelans when he admitted that doctors had found and removed a “baseball-sized” tumor from his pelvic region. Chávez then underwent four rounds of chemotherapy between July and September, after which he proclaimed himself “cured.” His recovery suffered complications, however, after Cuban doctors in February found a new lesion in precisely the same location as the original tumor (Chávez, who has refused to release any medical evidence about his affliction or its treatment, will not even confirm where the first tumor was located.)

Thus began an ongoing saga with which Venezuelans are still coming to terms. In the two months following his second operation in February, Chávez spent barely two weeks in his home country, as he traveled repeatedly to Cuba for surgery and radiation treatments. The once-pugnacious president, known for his fiery nine-hour speeches before the National Assembly, has made increasingly rare and timid public appearances since February. More than once, he has been consigned to communicating with his government and Venezuelans via Twitter. Meanwhile, he has drawn his inner circle close: in March, he promoted many of his top generals, in an apparent contingency plan to safeguard his “Bolivarian Revolution” in case he becomes incapacitated – or worse – before October’s election.

Throughout the ordeal, Chávez and his government have diligently guarded any information about his true medical condition. Ironically, this has only amplified reports of the president’s deteriorating health. Indeed, an intelligence report released by Wikileaks last summer indicated that Chávez had then between 12 and 16 months to live, which suggests that Chávez could be nearing death around the time of October’s election. The government denies these gravest of rumors, yet refuses to provide access to the medical records that might prove their falsity. Unless they do, the Venezuelan people will continue to wonder.