Venezuela is quietly quitting socialism By Stefano Pozzebon enablePagination: false (FILE PHOTO) (CNN) — Shantytowns surround Caracas, Venezuela's capital, like the walls of a bowl. Little houses pile on each other on the steep hills, some reachable only by vertiginous staircases. Earlier this month, Ingrid Sanchez tried to rustle up votes here for the ruling Socialist Party in Petare, Venezuela's largest barrio. As parliamentary elections got underway on December 6, she hired motorcycles and jeeps to ferry poor but faithful voters up steep hills to the polling station. Sanchez has no money to spare — a former teacher, she lives on a state pension worth just one and a half dollars per month. It was the Socialist Party — the late Hugo Chavez's party — that gave Ingrid cash to pay for the vehicles. But they weren't Venezuelan bolivars — they were US dollars. And as she counted it, Sanchez realized that the four $20 bills she held were worth more than 50 months of her pension.