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.
Camille Beredjick is a student of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a Spring 2013 ITT intern.
