On March 5, 2013, at 4:25 PM, Hugo Chavez, the longtime president of Venezuela, died after a long battle with cancer. To some, Chavez was a national hero, standing up for the poor and downtrodden against the rich. To others, he was a menace, using his charisma to gain support from the lower classes, while doing little to actually help them. His death leaves Venezuela bereft of leadership, but also hints at the possibility of a change in direction for the nation.
Chavez was born on July 28, 1954, to an impoverished family. Both of his parents were schoolteachers. When he was seventeen, he studied at the Venezuelan Academy of Military Sciences, which, despite the name, taught many subjects besides just military related ones. It was here where he became interested in Simon Bolivar and Che Guevara. Bolivar was a 19th century revolutionary, who is South America’s icon of resistance against Spanish imperialism. Che Guevara was another revolutionary, who was instrumental in Cuba’s communist revolution. These two sources would influence the direction of the rest of Chavez’s life.
After graduating, he served in the military for 5 years, before he formed the Bolivarian Revolutionary Army, a secret cell within the military. In 1992, he attempted to overthrow the Venezuelan government, but the coup failed miserably. However, the attempt gained the support of most of Venezuela’s working class, which comprised the vast majority of the population. After being released from prison in 1994, he would ride this wave of support to the presidency in the 1998 election, and he would hold this post for the next fifteen years.
Chavez was well known for being a vocal socialist. Having grown up surrounded by poverty and corruption in Venezuela’s prior laissez-faire economy, he was clearly disillusioned with the capitalist model, and understandably so. This has naturally put him at odds with the United States on many economic issues, but also allowed him to build a political alliance with other socialist-minded Latin American countries. He saw the United States as an imperialist hegemonic power, and was devoted to preventing US influence in Venezuela and the rest of the world.
His domestic legacy is mixed. The majority of Venezuela saw him as their champion, and loved him. During his term, Chavez was blessed with increased offshore oil windfalls, and this allowed him to increase welfare spending in accordance with his socialist policies. He was able to drop the poverty rate in Venezuela considerably from 42% to 30%; however, 30% is still nearly a third of the population, so his spending policies were only a partial success. In addition, his policies of controlling food prices made it hard for Venezuela to import food, which counter-intuitively made it harder for Venezuelans to get food.
Chavez was a polarizing figure in life, and will no doubt continue to be one in death. Venezuela stands at a crossroads: They will hold elections in thirty days. Chavez’s socialism has dominated Venezuela’s politics for a decade and a half. Will Venezuela continue down Chavez’s socialist vision, or will they turn around and re-embrace capitalism, re-establishing links with the West? Many eyes will fall on Venezuela in the coming month, as people observe Chavez’s legacy.
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