Roberto A. Ferdman
Quartz
October 25, 2013
Happy times are ahead for Venezuela.
Yesterday (Oct. 24), Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, announced the creation (link in Spanish) of a new governmental office: Viceministerio para la Suprema Felicidad Social del Pueblo, or “vice-ministry for the supreme social happiness of the people.” Now, as of Friday, Maduro has officially introduced Rafael Ríos, the country’s very first vice-minister of happiness. Ríos will be responsible for overseeing a number of government programs focused on social wellbeing.
“I have decided to create the office, and I have called it as such in honor of our commander [Hugo] Chávez and our [Simón] Bolivar, for the supreme social happiness of the people of Venezuela,” Maduro said, invoking the country’s late former president and the 19th-century liberator of Latin America. “Comrade Rafael Rios will be responsible for implementing and coordinating the famous missions created by our ‘perpetual Commandant’ with the purpose of ensuring ‘supreme social happiness.’”
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