CARACAS, Venezuela — In just over two years, President Nicolás Maduro has squandered much of the political capital Hugo Chávez built up during his 14 years in office. The dramatic drop in world oil prices last summer has put a dent in the populist generosity of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

The country’s gross domestic product has fallen fast since the first quarter. The inflation rate is in the triple digits — there is no way of knowing exactly because the figure is no longer published. Homicide numbers have reached record levels. There are chronic shortages of basic goods: chicken, meat, car batteries, antiretroviral drugs.

The government is trying to impose rationing, using fingerprint scanners and limiting people to buying certain products only one day per week. To buy diapers you must show your child’s birth certificate.

With the economy in free fall and little of Mr. Chávez’s charisma, Mr. Maduro has struggled to reassert the government’s authority. For a time, he leaned on the armed forces, appointing military officers to executive and diplomatic posts. The ruling party, known by its Spanish initials as the P.S.U.V., has abused its majority in the National Assembly to place party loyalists at the head of watchdog agencies. But neither these measures nor official propaganda and the state’s grip over the media could prevent the government’s popularity from continuing to plummet.