Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez died Tuesday afternoon, according to a public announcement by Vice President Nicolas Maduro. He was 58.
Chavez's death ends his charismatic 14-year Socialist leadership of Venezuela and his two-year battle with cancer. He had not been seen in public since he reportedly underwent surgery in December.
From Reuters:
Chavez easily won a new 6-year term at an election in October and his death will devastate millions of supporters who adored his charismatic style, anti-U.S. rhetoric and oil-financed policies that brought subsidized food and free health clinics to long-neglected slums.
Detractors, however, saw his one-man style, gleeful nationalizations and often harsh treatment of opponents as evidence of an egotistical dictator whose misplaced statist economics wasted a historic bonanza of oil revenues.
Venezuelans will vote within 30 days for a new president, and Maduro is favored to win against centrist opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in October.
Please consider supporting our work.
I hope you found this article important. Before you leave, I want to ask you to consider supporting our work with a donation. In These Times needs readers like you to help sustain our mission. We don’t depend on—or want—corporate advertising or deep-pocketed billionaires to fund our journalism. We’re supported by you, the reader, so we can focus on covering the issues that matter most to the progressive movement without fear or compromise.
Our work isn’t hidden behind a paywall because of people like you who support our journalism. We want to keep it that way. If you value the work we do and the movements we cover, please consider donating to In These Times.
Camille Beredjick is a student of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a Spring 2013 ITT intern.
