Hugo Chávez, in full Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (born July 28, 1954, Sabaneta, Barinas, Venezuela—died March 5, 2013, Caracas), Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela (1999–2013). Chávez styled himself as the leader of the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a socialist political program for much of Latin America, named after Simón Bolívar, the South American independence hero. Although the focus of the revolution has been subject to change depending on Chavez’s goals, its key elements include nationalism, a centralized economy, and a strong military actively engaged in public projects. His ideology became known to many as simply chavismo.
Early life
Chávez grew up in Sabaneta, a small town in the southwestern plains of Venezuela. He was the second of six surviving children, all boys. His parents, both schoolteachers, did not have enough money to support all their children, so Hugo and his eldest brother, Adán, were raised in the city of Barinas by their grandmother, Rosa Inés Chávez, who instilled in Hugo a love of history and politics.As a teenager, Chávez was heavily influenced by José Esteban Ruiz Guevara, a local historian, who introduced him to the teachings of Bolívar and Karl Marx, the German philosopher who was one of the fathers of communism, both of which had a profound impact on Chávez’s political philosophy. The presence of the National Liberation Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional; FALN), the communist guerrilla insurgency that began fighting the Venezuelan government in the 1960s, also greatly affected Chávez. The FALN was supported by Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who would later become Chávez’s political muse.
In 1971 Chávez entered the Venezuelan Military Academy in Caracas, the national capital, not because he wanted to be a soldier but because he dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player, and the academy had good baseball coaches. Chávez planned to enroll there, excel at baseball, and then drop out. But while he was a skilled left-handed pitcher, he was not good enough to play professionally, so he continued his studies. He was a poor and unruly student, however, and ultimately graduated near the bottom of his class in 1975.
Chávez started his military career as a second lieutenant in the army. His first assignment was to capture the remaining leftist guerrillas. But as he pursued the insurgents, Chávez began to empathize with them, seeing them as peasants fighting for a better life. By 1977 Chávez was ready to leave the army in disgust when he discovered that his brother Adán was secretly working with the insurgents. Chávez arranged to meet Douglas Bravo—head of the Venezuelan Revolution Party (Partido de la Revolución Venezolana; PRV), an underground movement, and a former leader of the FALN. “He inspired me and I realized I wouldn’t be leaving the army,” Chávez later said of Bravo. In 1982 Chávez and some fellow military officers secretly formed the Bolivarian Movement 200 to spread the insurgents’ revolutionary ideology within the military. Their goal was to take power in a civilian-military coup d’état.
Attainment of power
On February 4, 1992, Chávez and a group of military officers led an attempt to overthrow the government of Pres. Carlos Andrés Pérez. Unfortunately for Chávez, the rebellion quickly collapsed. While the other rebel leaders successfully captured their targeted military bases, Chávez was unable to complete the key part of the operation—the capture of President Pérez. Trapped in the Military History Museum near the presidential palace, Chávez realized that it was useless to keep fighting, and he agreed to surrender on the condition that he be allowed to address his coconspirators on national television. Chávez stood in front of the cameras and told his fellow “comrades” that regrettably—“for now,” he said—their goal of taking power could not be accomplished, and he beseeched them to put down their arms to avoid further bloodshed. Chávez spoke for less than two minutes, but this was essentially the beginning of his life as a politician. Many Venezuelans at that time were frustrated with their elected leaders, and they were inspired by Chávez and praised his bold ideas to reform the country. His address became known as the por ahora (“for now”) speech because many people took that specific phrase as a promise that one day Chávez would return.Chávez was imprisoned without a court ruling for the attempted coup until 1994, when Pres. Rafael Caldera Rodríguez, bowing to Chávez’s growing popularity, dropped the charges against him. Chávez then founded the political party Movement of the Fifth Republic (Movimiento de la Quinta República; MVR), enlisting many former socialist activists and military officers. Viewed as an outsider, Chávez was able to capitalize on widespread discontent with Venezuela’s established political parties, and in December 1998 he won the presidential election with 56 percent of the vote.
The Chávez presidency
Chávez took office in February 1999. During his first year in office, his approval rating reached 80 percent, and his platform—which advocated an end to corruption, increased spending on social programs, and redistribution of the country’s oil wealth—was widely applauded. Riding this wave of popularity, Chávez oversaw the drafting of a new constitution that gave him unprecedented control over the three branches of government. The new constitution required new elections for every elected official in the country. In this “mega-election” of 2000, Chávez was reelected to a six-year term. He also increased his power in the National Assembly, but his party fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for absolute control. Nevertheless, the pro-Chávez majority was large enough to pass an enabling law that allowed the president to implement certain laws by decree; the National Assembly also appointed all new (pro-Chávez) justices to the Supreme Court.While many Venezuelans had supported Chávez as an alternative to the corrupt two-party system that had ruled since 1958, others were alienated by his increasingly radical agenda. He formed intimate ties with Castro and stated his intent to take Venezuela down a path similar to Cuba’s. He continued to pass controversial laws by decree and moved to limit the independent press. He also alienated the United States and other countries in the West by forging close ties with Iraq, Iran, and Libya, as well as by openly criticizing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks of 2001. By early 2002 his approval rating had fallen to 30 percent, and anti-Chávez marches had become regular occurrences. Moreover, many of his allies, including some members of the military, began to turn against him.
On April 11, 2002, a rally estimated at close to a million people marched on the president’s palace to demand Chávez’s resignation. The rally was met with pro-Chávez gunmen and National Guard troops, and a gun battle erupted, leaving dead and wounded on both sides. The violence sparked a military revolt, and, in a move widely condemned as an illegal coup d’état, the military took Chávez into custody. The following day the military established an interim government, choosing Pedro Carmona, head of a national federation of private businesses and a Chávez opponent, to be the interim president. But Carmona caused an uproar when he immediately dissolved most of Venezuela’s democratic institutions and suspended the constitution. The Venezuelan military, fearing a right-wing dictatorship, then withdrew its support for the new government and on April 13 recognized Chávez’s vice president, Diosdado Cabello, as the rightful successor. Once sworn in, Cabello restored Chávez to power, and Chávez returned to the presidential palace on the morning of April 14.
The coup was the first of a string of conflicts between the Chávez government and the opposition—clashes that continued to polarize Venezuelan society into two bitterly opposed camps: Chávez supporters (chavistas) and opposition members (escuálidos [“scrawny ones”], a derisive term coined by Chávez but quickly and proudly embraced by the opposition). In December 2002 the opposition began a national strike designed to force Chávez to resign. At the centre of the strike was the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), which accounted for 80 percent of Venezuela’s export revenue. In response, Chávez fired the striking PDVSA workers—about half the company’s 38,000 employees—and brought in nonunion workers and foreign oil crews to maintain oil production. By February 2003 the strike had collapsed, and Chávez had full control of PDVSA.
Throughout 2003 and the first half of 2004, the opposition focused on a recall referendum that would push the president out of office midway through his term, but Chávez—now with PDVSA revenues at his disposal and the global price of oil climbing—began spending lavishly on social programs, including literacy and health care initiatives. His approval rating rebounded and, despite allegations of fraud, Chávez defeated the recall referendum in August 2004. In December 2005, to protest what they felt was corruption in the Chávez-dominated National Election Council (the institution that oversees elections), the opposition candidates boycotted the country’s legislative elections. But the elections proceeded without them, and Chávez’s coalition gained complete control of the National Assembly. It seemed to some political analysts that the more the opposition attacked Chávez, the stronger he became.
In December 2006 Chávez was elected president for a third time, with 63 percent of the vote. Ensured another six years in power, he pushed ahead with plans for “21st-century socialism” by nationalizing key industries, including electricity and telecommunications, as well as what remained of the private oil sector. He also became more vocal in his anti-American rhetoric, particularly in his attacks against Pres. George W. Bush, whom he called “the Devil” in front of the United Nations General Assembly. In 2007 Chávez sponsored a package of changes to the Venezuelan constitution. While analysts noted that the new provisions included certain “crowd pleasers,” like a maximum six-hour workday, most of the changes would have increased the power of the executive branch, including giving it greater control over the Central Bank and allowing it to seize property without a legal ruling. The most controversial provision, however, would have allowed for the president’s indefinite reelection. In December 2007 the package of amendments was narrowly defeated in a popular referendum by a margin of 51 to 49 percent—Chávez’s first defeat at the polls.
In February 2009 a more moderate package of constitutional changes was approved in a popular referendum, clearing the way for Chávez’s perpetual reelection. Bolstered by the victory, the government launched an aggressive program to stifle dissent, arresting key political opponents, closing dozens of opposition radio stations, and moving to close Globovisión—the only television station that remained critical of the government.
In June 2011 Chávez was operated on in Cuba to remove a cancerous tumour. The specific nature of his cancer was not revealed, but, after coming home to Venezuela in early July, he returned to Cuba twice (first in July and then in early August) for follow-up treatment that included chemotherapy. Although speculation grew as to whether he would be physically able to stand for reelection in 2012, Chávez mounted an aggressive campaign against challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski, the popular 40-year-old governor of Miranda state, who headed a united opposition made up of some 30 parties from across the political spectrum. The election in October 2012 was not as close as expected, though Chávez’s margin of victory (about 10 percent) was considerably less than that in his triumph in 2006, when he captured almost two-thirds of the vote.
In December 2012 Chávez underwent his fourth cancer surgery in Cuba. He remained there into the new year to recuperate, ostensibly from a lung infection that was a consequence of the surgery; however, the government was criticized by the opposition for not being more forthcoming with details of the president’s health. When Chávez was not well enough to return to Venezuela for his scheduled inauguration in January 2013, it became a constitutional issue. The National Assembly voted to allow the president’s swearing-in to be delayed, and the Supreme Court confirmed the constitutionality of that action. Opposition leaders—who had called for the head of the National Assembly to be named temporary president in Chávez’s absence—grudgingly accepted the court’s decision.
Assessment
Although many people criticized Chávez as appearing unprofessional or even buffoonish for his fiery rhetoric and his penchant for slinging insults at world leaders, he was in fact a very astute politician and a remarkable strategist. With his charisma and gift as an orator, he arguably did more than any other Latin American leader in half a century to unite many of the countries in the region, largely by capitalizing on the widespread feelings of neglect and frustration felt by the masses.Chávez sincerely saw himself as a modern-day Bolívar, continuing the work of the 19th-century statesman who had led the fight for Latin America’s independence from Spain and advocated the creation of a league of Latin American states. Combining Bolívar’s vision of a unified Latin America, free from the interference of foreign powers, with revolutionary Marxist ideology, Chávez worked to create a Latin American alliance powerful enough not only to expel U.S. influence from the region but also to compete politically and economically with the United States and the European Union. To this end, he actively promoted the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), a regional bloc for social, political, and economic integration created with Castro in 2004, and PetroCaribe, a Venezuelan-led regional energy program created in 2005. These initiatives found considerable support as alternatives to globalization and the economic policies that many Latin Americans felt were pushed on them by the United States and by international lending agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. However, while Chávez found common ground with many Latin American countries, he alienated others. Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, and Peru at some point each accused Chávez of meddling in their domestic affairs. Furthermore, Chávez’s critics cited Venezuela’s massive arms buildup, its transfer of money and arms to the Colombian guerrilla group FARC, its military alliance with Russia, and its continentwide media coverage as proof of Chávez’s intent to destabilize large sections of Latin America in a sort of “superinsurgency.”
Within Venezuela the people were deeply divided, and this polarization, combined with a lack of transparency on the part of the government, made it difficult to gauge the success of Chávez’s revolution. Government statistics were often contradicted by independent sources, and nonbiased assessments were rare. His opponents pointed to Chávez’s increasing authoritarianism, a more than doubling of the country’s homicide rate under his rule, shortages of basic foods like sugar, milk, and beans, one of the highest inflation rates in Latin America, and a stubbornly high infant mortality rate, which suggested that government oil profits still were not reaching the poorest citizens. Critics also noted that democracy was dramatically weakened under Chávez’s rule. He and his coalition indeed controlled all the institutions of the state—the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, and the National Election Council. Analysts said that the Chávez government could act with impunity, while those who opposed it had little legal recourse and were often subject to state-sponsored harassment. On the other hand, Chávez proponents pointed to successful education programs, increased access to health care, a rise in employment, and a more than 20 percent drop in the poverty rate under Chávez’s rule.
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