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Hugo Chávez
President of Venezuela
Incumbent
Assumed office 2 February 1999
Vice President	Isaías Rodríguez Adina Bastidas Diosdado Cabello José Vicente Rangel Jorge Rodríguez Ramón Carrizales Elias Jaua
Preceded by	Rafael Caldera
Personal details
Born	Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (1954-07-28) 28 July 1954 (age 57) Sabaneta, Venezuela
Nationality	Venezuelan
Political party	United Socialist Party (2008–present)
Other political affiliations	Fifth Republic Movement (1997–2008)
Spouse(s)	Nancy Colmenares (Div.) Marisabel Rodríguez (Div.)
Relations	Adán Chávez, Aníbal José Chávez Frías (brothers)
Occupation	Military officer (to 1992) and politician
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	Venezuela
Service/branch	Army
Years of service	1971–1992
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈuɣo rafaˈel ˈtʃaβes ˈfɾi.as]; born 28 July 1954) is the current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Following his own political ideology of Bolivarianism and "Socialism for the 21st Century", he has focused on implementing socialist reforms in the country as a part of a social project known as the Bolivarian Revolution, which has seen the implementation of a new constitution, participatory democratic councils and the nationalisation of several key industries.

Born into a working class family in Sabaneta, Barinas, Chávez became a career military officer, and after becoming dissatisfied with the Venezuelan political system, he founded the secretive Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) in the early 1980s to work towards overthrowing it. Chávez led the MBR-200 in an unsuccessful coup d'état against the Democratic Action government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez government in 1992, for which he was imprisoned. Getting out of prison after two years, he founded a social democratic political party, the Fifth Republic Movement, and was elected president of Venezuela in 1998. He subsequently introduced a new constitution which increased rights for marginalised groups and altered the structure of Venezuelan government, and was re-elected in 2000. During his second presidential term, he introduced a system of Bolivarian Missions, Communal Councils and worker-managed cooperatives, as well as a program of land reform, whilst also nationalising various key industries.

Chavez describes his policies as basically anti-imperialist^[1] and he is a vocal critic of neoliberalism and capitalism more generally, Chávez has been a prominent adversary of the United States' foreign policy.^[2] Allying himself strongly with the Communist governments of Fidel and then Raúl Castro in Cuba, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, his presidency is seen as a part of the socialist "pink tide" sweeping Latin America. He has supported Latin American and Caribbean cooperation and was instrumental in setting up the pan-regional Union of South American Nations, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Bank of the South, and the regional television network TeleSur. Chavez is a highly controversial and divisive figure both at home and abroad.

Early life[link]

Childhood: 1954–1970[link]

Sabaneta, Barinas, where Chávez was born and raised.

Hugo Chávez was born on 28 July 1954 in his paternal grandmother Rosa Inéz Chávez's home, a modest three-room house located in the rural village Sabaneta, Barinas State. The Chávez family were of Amerindian, Afro-Venezuelan, and Spanish descent.^[3] His parents, Hugo de los Reyes Chávez and Elena Frías de Chávez, were working-lower middle class schoolteachers who lived in the small village of Los Rastrojos. Hugo was born the second of seven children, including their eldest, Adán Chávez.^[4][5] The couple lived in poverty, leading them to send Hugo and Adán to live with their grandmother Rosa,^[6] whom Hugo would later describe as being "a pure human being... pure love, pure kindness."^[7] She was a devout Roman Catholic, and Hugo was an altar boy at a local church.^[8] Hugo described his childhood as "poor...very happy", and experienced "humility, poverty, pain, sometimes not having anything to eat", and "the injustices of this world."^[9]

Attending the Julián Pino Elementary School, Chávez's hobbies included drawing, painting, baseball and history. He was particularly interested in the 19th-century federalist general Ezequiel Zamora, in whose army his own great-great-grandfather had served.^[10][11] In the mid-1960s, Hugo, his brother and their grandmother moved to the city of Barinas so that the boys could attend what was then the only high school in the rural state, the Daniel O'Leary High School.^[12]

Military Academy: 1971–1975[link]

Aged seventeen, Chávez decided to study at the Venezuelan Academy of Military Sciences in Caracas. At the Academy, he was a member of the first class that was following a restructured curriculum known as the Andrés Bello Plan. This plan had been instituted by a group of progressive, nationalistic military officers who believed that change was needed within the military. This new curriculum encouraged students to learn not only military routines and tactics but also a wide variety of other topics, and to do so civilian professors were brought in from other universities to give lectures to the military cadets.^[13][14][15] Living in Caracas, he saw more of the endemic poverty faced by working class Venezuelans, something that echoed the poverty he had experienced growing up, and he has maintained that this experience only made him further committed to achieving social justice.^[16][17] He also began to get involved in local activities outside of the military school, playing both baseball and softball with the Criollitos de Venezuela team, progressing with them to the Venezuelan National Baseball Championships. Other hobbies that he undertook at the time included writing numerous poems, stories and theatrical pieces, painting^[18] and researching the life and political thought of 19th-century South American revolutionary Simón Bolívar.^[19] He also became interested in the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara (1928–1967) after reading his memoir The Diary of Che Guevara, although also read books by a wide variety of other figures, from Karl Marx to Hannibal and Napoleon Bonaparte.^[20]

In 1974 he was selected to be a representative in the commemorations for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Ayacucho in Peru, the conflict in which Simon Bolívar's lieutenant, Antonio José de Sucre, defeated royalist forces during the Peruvian War of Independence. It was in Peru that Chávez heard the leftist president, General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1910–1977), speak, and inspired by Velasco's ideas that the military should act in the interests of the working classes when the ruling classes were perceived as corrupt,^[21] he "drank up the books [Velasco had written], even memorising some speeches almost completely."^[22] Befriending the son of Panamanian President Omar Torrijos (1929–1981), another leftist military general, Chávez subsequently visited Panama, where he met with Torrijos, and was impressed with his land reform program that was designed to benefit the peasants. Being heavily influenced by both Torrijos and Velasco, he saw the potential for military generals to seize control of a government when the civilian authorities were perceived as only serving the interests of the wealthy elites.^[21][23] In contrast to military presidents like Torrijos and Velasco however, Chávez became highly critical of Augusto Pinochet, the right-wing general who had recently seized control in Chile with the aid of the American CIA.^[24] Chávez would later relate that "With Torrijos, I became a Torrijist. With Velasco I became a Velasquist. And with Pinochet, I became an anti-Pinochetist."^[25] In 1975, Chávez graduated from the military academy, being rated one of the top graduates of the year (eight out of seventy five).^[26][27][28]

Early military career: 1976–1981[link]

Following his graduation, Chávez was stationed as a communications officer at a counterinsurgency unit in Barinas,^[30] although the Marxist-Leninist insurgency which the army was sent to combat had already been eradicated from that state, leaving the unit with much spare time. Chávez himself played in a local baseball team, wrote a column for the local newspaper, organized bingo games and judged at beauty pageants.^[31] At one point he found a stash of Marxist literature that was in an abandoned car riddled with bullet holes. Apparently having belonged to insurgents many years before, he went on to read these books, which included titles by such theoreticians as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong, but his favourite was a work entitled The Times of Ezequiel Zamora, written about the 19th-century federalist general whom Chávez had admired as a child.^[32] These books further convinced Chávez of the need for a leftist government in Venezuela, later remarking that "By the time I was 21 or 22, I made myself a man of the left."^[33]

In 1977, Chávez's unit was transferred to Anzoátegui, where they were involved in battling the Red Flag Party, a Marxist-Hoxhaist insurgency group.^[34] After intervening to prevent the beating of an alleged insurgent by other soldiers,^[35] Chávez began to have his doubts about the army and their methods in using torture.^[33] At the same time, he was becoming increasingly critical of the corruption in both the army and in the civilian government, coming to believe that despite the wealth being produced by the country's oil reserves, Venezuela's poor masses were not receiving their share, something he felt to be inherently un-democratic. In doing so, he began to sympathise with the Red Flag Party and their cause, if not their violent methods.^[36]

In 1977, he founded a revolutionary movement within the armed forces, in the hope that he could one day introduce a leftist government to Venezuela: the Venezuelan People's Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación del Pueblo de Venezuela, or ELPV), was a secretive cell within the military that consisted of him and a handful of his fellow soldiers. Although they knew that they wanted a middle way between the right wing policies of the government and the far left position of the Red Flag, they did not have any plans of action for the time being.^[35][37][38] Nevertheless, hoping to gain an alliance with civilian leftist groups in Venezuela, Chávez then set about clandestinely meeting various prominent Marxists, including Alfredo Maneiro (the founder of the Radical Cause) and Douglas Bravo, despite having numerous political differences with them.^[39][40] At this time, Chávez married a working class woman named Nancy Colmenares, with whom he would go on to have three children, Rosa Virginia (born September 1978), Maria Gabriela (born March 1980) and Hugo Rafael (born October 1983).^[41]

Revolutionary activity[link]

Later military career and the Bolivarian Revolutionary Army-200: 1982–1991[link]

Five years after his creation of the ELPV, Chávez went on to form a new secretive cell within the military, the Bolivarian Revolutionary Army-200 (EBR-200), later redesignated the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200).^[13][42][43] Taking inspiration from three Venezuelans whom Chávez deeply admired, Ezequiel Zamora (1817–1860), Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) and Simón Rodríguez (1769–1854), these historical figures became known as the "three roots of the tree" of the MBR-200.^[44][45] Later describing the group's foundation, Chávez would state that "the Bolivarian movement that was being born did not propose political objectives... Its goals were imminently internal. Its efforts were directed in the first place to studying the military history of Venezuela as a source of a military doctrine of our own, which up to then didn't exist."^[46] However, he always hoped that the Bolivarian Movement would become politically dominant, and on his political ideas at the time, remarked that "This tree [of Bolívar, Zamora and Rodríguez] has to be a circumference, it has to accept all kinds of ideas, from the right, from the left, from the ideological ruins of those old capitalist and communist systems."^[47] Indeed, Irish political analyst Barry Cannon noted that the early Bolivarian ideology was explicitly capitalist, but that it "was a doctrine in construction, a heterogeneous amalgam of thoughts and ideologies, from universal thought, capitalism, Marxism, but rejecting the neoliberal models currently being imposed in Latin America and the discredited socialist and communist models of the old Soviet Bloc."^[48]

In 1981, Chávez, by now a captain, was assigned to teach at the military academy where he had formerly trained. Here he indoctrinated new students in his so-called "Bolivarian" ideals, and recruited those whom he felt would make good members of the MBR-200, as well as organizing sporting and theatrical events for the students. In his recruiting attempts he was relatively successful, for by the time they had graduated, at least thirty out of 133 cadets had joined it.^[49] In 1984 he met a Venezuelan woman of German ancestry named Herma Marksman who was a recently divorced history teacher. Sharing many interests in common, she eventually got involved in Chávez's movement and the two fell in love, having an affair that would last several years.^[50][51] Another figure to get involved with the movement was Francisco Arias Cárdenas, a soldier particularly interested in liberation theology.^[52] Cárdenas rose to a significant position within the group, although came into ideological conflict with Chávez, who believed that they should begin direct military action in order to overthrow the government, something Cárdenas thought was reckless.^[53]

However, some senior military officers became suspicious of Chávez after hearing rumours about the MBR-200. Unable to legally dismiss him without proof, they re-assigned him so that he would not be able to gain any more fresh new recruits from the academy. He was sent to take command of the remote barracks at Elorza in Apure State,^[54] where he got involved in the local community by organizing social events, and contacted the local indigenous tribal peoples, the Cuiva and Yaruro. Although distrustful due to their mistreatment at the hands of the Venezuelan army in previous decades, Chávez gained their trust by joining the expeditions of an anthropologist to meet with them. His experiences with them would later lead him to introduce laws protecting the rights of indigenous tribal peoples when he gained power many years later.^[55] While on holiday, he retraced on foot the route taken by his great-grandfather, the revolutionary Pedro Pérez Delgado (known as Maisanta), to understand his family history; on that trip, he met a woman who told Chávez how Maisanta had become a local hero by rescuing an abducted girl.^[56] In 1988, after being promoted to the rank of major, the high ranking General Rodríguez Ochoa took a liking to Chávez and employed him to be his assistant at his office in Caracas.^[57]

Operation Zamora: 1992[link]

In 1989, Carlos Andrés Pérez (1922–2010), the candidate of the centrist Democratic Action Party, was elected President after promising to oppose the United States government's Washington Consensus and financial policies recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Nevertheless, he did neither once he got into office, following instead the neoliberal economic policies supported by the United States and the IMF. He dramatically cut spending, put prominent men in governmental posts. Pérez's policies angered some of the public..^[58][59][60] In an attempt to stop the widespread protests and looting that followed his social spending cuts, Pérez ordered the violent repression and massacre of protesters known as El Caracazo, which "according to official figures ... left a balance of 276 dead, numerous injured, several disappeared and heavy material losses. However, this list was invalidated by the subsequent appearance of mass graves", indicating that the official death count was inadequate.^[61][62][63] Pérez had used both the DISIP political police and the army to orchestrate El Caracazo. Chávez did not participate in the repression because he was then hospitalized with chicken pox, and later condemned the event as "genocide".^[64][65]

Disturbed by the Caracazo, rampant government corruption, the domination of politics by the Venezuelan oligarchy through the Punto Fijo Pact, and what he called "the dictatorship of the IMF", Chávez began preparing for a military coup d'état,^[63][66] known as Operation Zamora.^[67] Initially planned for December, Chávez delayed the MBR-200 coup until the early twilight hours of 4 February 1992. On that date, five army units under Chávez's command moved into urban Caracas with the mission of overwhelming key military and communications installations, including the Miraflores presidential palace, the defense ministry, La Carlota military airport and the Military Museum. Chávez's immediate goal was to intercept and take custody of Pérez, who was returning to Miraflores from an overseas trip. Despite years of planning, the coup quickly encountered trouble. At the time of the coup, Chávez had the loyalty of less than 10% of Venezuela's military forces,^[68] and, because of numerous betrayals, defections, errors, and other unforeseen circumstances, Chávez and a small group of rebels found themselves hiding in the Military Museum, without any means of conveying orders to their network of spies and collaborators spread throughout Venezuela.^[69] Furthermore, Chávez's allies were unable to broadcast their prerecorded tapes on the national airwaves, during which Chávez planned to issue a general call for a mass civilian uprising against the Pérez government. Finally, Chávez's forces were unable to capture Pérez, who managed to escape from them. Fourteen soldiers were killed, and fifty soldiers and some eighty civilians injured during the ensuing violence.^[70][71][72]

Realising that the coup had failed, Chávez gave himself up to the government. On the condition that he called upon the remaining active coup members to cease hostilities, he was allowed to appear on national television, something that he insisted on doing in his military uniform. During this address, he invoked the name of national hero Simón Bolívar and declared to the Venezuelan people that "Comrades: unfortunately, for now, the objectives we had set for ourselves were not achieved in the capital city. That is, those of us here in Caracas did not seize power. Where you are, you have performed very well, but now is the time for a reflect. New opportunities will arise and the country has to head definitively toward a better future."^[73] Many viewers noted that Chávez had remarked that he had only failed "por ahora" (for now),^{[13][74][75][76][77]} and he was immediately catapulted into the national spotlight, with many Venezuelans, particularly those from the poorer sections of society, seeing him as a figure who had stood up against government corruption and kleptocracy.^[78][79][80]

Chávez was arrested and imprisoned at the San Carlos military stockade, where he remained wracked with guilt, feeling responsible for the coup's failure.^[81][82] Indeed, pro-Chávez demonstrations that took place outside of San Carlos led to him being transferred to Yare prison soon after.^[83] The government meanwhile began a temporary crackdown on media supportive of Chávez and the coup.^[84] A further attempted coup against the government occurred in November, which was once more defeated,^[66][85] although Pérez himself was impeached a year later for malfeasance and misappropriation of funds for illegal activities.^[86][87]

Political rise: 1992–1998[link]

Whilst Chávez and the other senior members of the MBR-200 were in prison, his relationship with Herma Marksman broke up in July 1993.^[88] She would subsequently become "a bitter critic of Chávez, whose supporters wondered how much of her anger was stoked by their failed romance."^[89] In 1994, Rafael Caldera (1916–2009) of the centrist National Convergence Party was elected to the presidency, and soon after taking power, freed Chávez and the other imprisoned MBR-200 members as per his pre-election pledge. Caldera had however imposed upon them the condition that they would not return to the military, where they could potentially organise another coup.^[90][91] After being mobbed by adoring crowds following his release, Chávez went on a 100 day tour of the country, promoting his Bolivarian cause of social revolution.^[92] Now living off a small military pension as well as the donations of his supporters, he continued to financially support his three children and their mother despite divorcing Nancy Colmenares around this period. On his tours around the country, he would meet Marisabel Rodríguez, who would give birth to their daughter shortly before becoming his second wife in 1997.^[93][94]

Travelling around Latin America in search of foreign support for his Bolivarian movement, he visited Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, and finally Cuba, where the Communist leader Fidel Castro (1926–) arranged to meet him. After spending several days in one another's company, Chávez and Castro became friends with the former describing the Cuban leader as being like a father to him.^[95] Returning to Venezuela, Chávez failed to gain mainstream media attention for his political cause. Instead, he gained publicity from small, local-based newspapers and media outlets.^[96] As a part of his condemnation of the ruling class, Chávez became critical of President Caldera, whose neoliberal economic policies had caused inflation and who had both suspended constitutional guarantees and arrested a number of Chávez's supporters.^[97] According to the United Nations, by 1997 the per capita income for Venezuelan citizens had fallen to US$ 2,858 from US$ 5,192 in 1990, whilst poverty levels had increased by 17.65% since 1980 and homicide and other crime rates had more than doubled since 1986, particularly in Caracas.^[98] Coupled with this drop in the standard of living, widespread dissatisfaction with the representative democratic system in Venezuela had "led to gaps emerging between rulers and ruled which favoured the emergence of a populist leader".^[99]

A debate soon developed in the Bolivarian movement as to whether it should try to take power in elections or whether it should instead continue to believe that military action was the only effective way of bringing about political change. Chávez was a keen proponent of the latter view, believing that the oligarchy would never allow he and his supporters to win an election,^[100] whilst Francisco Arias Cárdenas instead insisted that they take part in the representative democratic process. Cárdenas himself proved his point when, after joining the Radical Cause socialist party, he won the December 1995 election to become governor of the oil-rich Zulia State.^[101] Subsequently changing his opinion on the issue, Chávez and his supporters in the Bolivarian movement decided to found their own political party, the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR—Movimiento Quinta República) in July 1997 in order to support Chávez's candidature in the Venezuelan presidential election, 1998.^{[70][102][103][104]}

1998 election[link]

At the start of the election run-up, most polls gave Irene Sáez, then-mayor of Caracas' richest district, Chacao, the lead. Although an independent candidate, she had the backing of one of Venezuela's two primary political parties, Copei.^[106] In opposition to her right wing and pro-establishment views, Chávez and his followers described their aim as "laying the foundations of a new republic" to replace the existing one, which they cast as "party-dominated"; the current constitution, they argued, was no more than the "legal-political embodiment of puntofijismo", the country's traditional two-party patronage system.^[107] This revolutionary rhetoric gained Chávez and the MVR support from a number of other leftist parties, including the Patria Para Todos (Motherland for All), the Partido Comunist Venezolano (Venezeuelan Communist Party) and the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism), which together fashioned a political union supporting his candidacy called the Polo Patriotic (Patriotic Pole).^[104][108]

Chávez's promises of widespread social and economic reforms won the trust and favor of a primarily poor and working class following. By May 1998, Chávez's support had risen to 30% in polls, and by August he was registering 39%.^[109] Much of his support came from his 'strong man' populist image and charismatic appeal.^[110] This rise in popularity worried Chávez's opponents, with the oligarchy-owned mainstream media proceeding to attack him with a series of allegations, which included the claim – which he dismissed as ridiculous – that he was a cannibal who ate children.^[111] With his support increasing, and Sáez's decreasing, both the main two political parties, Copei and Democratic Action, put their support behind Henrique Salas Römer, a Yale University-educated economist who representated the Project Venezuela party.^[112]

Chávez won the election with 56.20% of the vote. Salas Römer came second, with 39.97%, whilst the other candidates, including Irene Sáez and Alfaro Ucero, only gained tiny proportions of the vote.^[87][113] Academic analysis of the election showed that Chávez's support had come primarily from the country's poor and the "disenchanted middle class", whose standard of living had decreased rapidly in the previous decade,^[114] although at the same time much of the middle and upper class vote had instead gone to Salas Römer.^[115] Following the announcement of his victory, Chávez gave a speech in which he declared that "The resurrection of Venezuela has begun, and nothing and no one can stop it."^[113]

Presidency[link]

First Presidential Term: 1999–2000[link]

A triumphant Hugo Chávez visiting Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2003.

Chávez's presidential inauguration took place on 2 February 1999, and during the usual presidential oath he deviated from the prescribed words to proclaim that "I swear before my people that upon this moribund constitution I will drive forth the necessary democratic transformations so that the new republic will have a Magna Carta befitting these new times."^[116][117] He subsequently set about appointing new figures to a number of government posts, including promoting various leftist allies to key positions; he for instance gave one of the founders of MBR, Jesús Urdaneta, the position in charge of the secret police, and made one of the 1992 coup leaders, Hernán Grüber Ódreman, governor of the Federal District of Caracas.^[118] Chávez also appointed some conservative, centrist and centre-right figures to government positions as well, reappointing Caldera's economy minister Maritza Izaquirre to that same position and also appointing the businessman Roberto Mandini to be president of the state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela.^[119] His critics referred to this group of government officials as the "Boliburguesía" or "Bolivarian bourgeoisie",^[120][121] and highlighted the fact that it "included few people with experience in public administration."^[116] He also made several alterations to his presidential privileges, scrapping the presidential limousine, giving away his entire presidential wage of $1,200 a month to a scholarship fund,^[122] and selling off many of the government-owned airplanes, although alternately many of his critics accused him of excessive personal expenses for himself, his family and friends.^[123] The involvement of a number of his immediate family members in Venezuelan politics has also led to accusations of nepotism, something Chávez denies.^[124] Meanwhile, in June 2000 he separated from his wife Marisabel, and their divorce was finalised in January 2004.^[125]

Although he publicly used strong revolutionary rhetoric from the beginning of his presidency, the Chávez government's initial policies were moderate, capitalist and centre-left, having much in common with those of contemporary Latin American leftists like Brazil's president Lula da Silva.^[126][127] Chávez initially believed that capitalism was still a valid economic model for Venezuela, but that it would have to be Rhenish capitalism or the Third Way that would be followed rather than the neoliberalism which had been implemented under former governments with the encouragement of the United States.^[128] He followed the economic guidelines recommended by the International Monetary Fund and continued to encourage foreign corporations to invest in Venezuela,^[129] even visiting the New York Stock Exchange in the United States in an attempt to convince wealthy investors to do so.^[130][131] To increase his visibility abroad, Chávez spent fifty-two days of his first year as president outside of Venezuela, travelling the world meeting various national leaders, such as American President Bill Clinton, Governor of Texas George W. Bush and Chinese Premier Jiang Zemin.^[132]

Whilst he was remaining fiscally conservative, he introduced measures in an attempt to alleviate the poverty of the Venezuelan working class. Chávez immediately set into motion a social welfare program called Plan Bolívar 2000, which he organised to begin on 27 February 1999, the tenth anniversary of the Caracazo massacre. Costing $113,000,000, Plan Bolívar 2000 involved 70,000 army officers going out into the streets of Venezuela where they would repair roads and hospitals, offer free medical care and vaccinations, and sell food at cheap prices.^{[133][134][135]} Chávez himself described the Plan by saying that "Ten years ago we came to massacre the people. Now we are going to fill them with love. Go and comb the land, search out and destroy poverty and death. We are going to fill them with love instead of lead."^[136] In order to explain his latest thoughts and plans to the Venezuelan people, in May he also launched his own Sunday morning radio show, Aló Presidente (Hello, President), on the state radio network, as well as a Thursday night television show, De Frente con el Presidente (Face to Face with the President). He followed this with his own newspaper, El Correo del Presidente (The President's Post), founded in July, for which he acted as editor-in-chief, but which was later shut amidst accusations of corruption in its management.^[137] In his television and radio shows, he answered calls from citizens, discussed his latest policies, sung songs and told jokes, making it unique not only in Latin America but the entire world.^[138]

Constitutional reform[link]

Chávez holds a miniature copy of the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution at the 2005 World Social Forum held in Brazil.

Chávez then called for a public referendum – something virtually unknown in Venezuela at the time – which he hoped would support his plans to form a constitutional assembly, composed of representatives from across Venezuela, as well as from indigenous tribal groups, which would be able to rewrite the nation's constitution. The referendum went ahead on 25 April 1999, and was an overwhelming success for Chávez, with 88% of voters supporting the proposal.^[139][140]

Following this, Chávez called for an election to take place on 25 July, in which the members of the constitutional assembly would be voted into power.^[141] Of the 1,171 candidates standing for election to the assembly, over 900 of them were opponents of Chávez, but despite this, his supporters won another overwhelming electoral victory, taking 125 seats (95% of the total), including all of those belonging to indigenous tribal groups, whereas the opposition were voted into only 6 seats.^{[139][142][143]} On 12 August 1999, the new constitutional assembly voted to give themselves the power to abolish government institutions and to dismiss officials who were perceived as being corrupt or operating only in their own interests. Whilst supporters of the move believed that it could force reforms that had been blocked by corrupt politicians and judicial authorities for years, many opponents of the Chávez regime argued that it gave Chávez and the Bolivarians too much power at the expense of their political opponents, and was therefore dictatorial.^[144][145]

The elected members of the constituent assembly put together a new constitution, and a referendum on the issue of whether to adopt it was held in December 1999; the referendum saw an abstention vote of over 50%, although amongst those voting, 72% approved the new constitution's adoption.^{[143][146][147]} The new constitution included increased protections for indigenous peoples and women, and established the rights of the public to education, housing, healthcare and food. It added new environmental protections, and increased requirements for government transparency. It increased the presidential term from five to six years, allowed people to recall presidents by referendum, and added a new presidential two-term limit. It converted the bicameral legislature, a Congress with both a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies, into a unicameral one comprising only a National Assembly.^{[148][149][150][151]} The constitution gave greater powers to the president, not only by extending their term but also by giving them the power to legislate on citizen rights as well as the economic and financial matters that they were formerly able to do.^[152] It also gave the military a role in the government by providing them with the mandated role of ensuring public order and aiding national development, something they had been expressely forbidden from doing under the former constitution.^[152] As a part of the new constitution, the country, which was then officially known as the Republic of Venezuela, was renamed the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (República Bolivariana de Venezuela) at Chávez's request, thereby reflecting the government's ideology of Bolivarianism and the influence of Simón Bolívar on the nation as a whole.^[142][143]

Second Presidential Term: 2000–2006[link]

This section requires expansion with: Information on the land reform program and workers' councils.

Under the new constitution, it was legally required that new elections be held in order to relegimatize the government and president. This presidential election in July 2000 would be a part of a greater "megaelection", the first time in the country's history that the president, governors, national and regional congressmen, mayors and councilmen would be voted for on the same day.^{[153][154][155]} For the position of president, Chávez's closest challenger proved to be his former friend and co-conspirator in the 1992 coup, Francisco Arias Cárdenas, who since becoming governor of Zulia state had turned towards the political centre and begun to denounce Chávez as autocratic.^[156] Although some of his supporters feared that he had alienated those in the middle class and the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy who had formerly supported him, Chávez was re-elected with 59.76% of the vote (the equivalent of 3,757,000 people), a larger majority than his 1998 electoral victory,^[157][158] again primarily receiving his support from the poorer sectors of Venezuelan society.^[159]

That year, Chávez helped to further cement his geopolitical and ideological ties with the Cuban government of Fidel Castro by signing an agreement under which Venezuela would supply Cuba with 53,000 barrels of oil per day at preferential rates, in return receiving 20,000 trained Cuban medics and educators. In the ensuing decade, this would be increased to 90,000 barrels a day (in exchange for 40,000 Cuban medics and teachers), dramatically aiding the Caribbean island's economy and standard of living after its "Special Period" of the 1990s.^[160] However, Venezuela's growing alliance with Cuba came at the same time as a deteriorating relationship with the United States: in late 2001, just after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in retaliation for the 11 September attacks against the U.S. by Islamist militants, Chávez showed pictures of Afghan children killed in a bomb attack on his television show. He commented that "They are not to blame for the terrorism of Osama Bin Laden or anyone else", and called on the American government to end "the massacre of the innocents. Terrorism cannot be fought with terrorism." The U.S. government responded negatively to the comments, which were picked up by the media worldwide.^[161]

Chávez's second term in office saw the implementation of social missions, such as this one to eliminate illiteracy in Venezuela.

Meanwhile, the 2000 elections had led to Chávez's supporters gaining 101 out of 165 seats in the Venezuelan National Assembly, and so in November 2001 they voted to allow him to pass 49 social and economic decrees.^[162][163] This move antagonized the opposition movement particularly strongly.^[155]

At the start of the 21st century, Venezuela was the world's fifth largest exporter of crude oil, with oil accounting for 85.3% of the country's exports, therefore dominating the country's economy.^[164][165] Previous administrations had sought to privatise this industry, with U.S. corporations having a significant level of control, but the Chávez administration wished to curb this foreign control over the country's natural resources by nationalising much of it under the state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA). In 2001, the government introduced a new Hydrocarbons Law through which they sought to gain greater state control over the oil industry: they did this by raising royalty taxes on the oil companies and also by introducing the formation of "mixed companies", whereby the PdVSA could have joint control with private companies over industry. By 2006, all of the 32 operating agreements signed with private corporations during the 1990s had been converted from being primarily or solely corporate-run to being at least 51% controlled by PdVSA.^[164]

Growing opposition and the CD[link]

During Chávez's first term in office, the opposition movement had been "strong but reasonably contained, [with] complaints centring mainly on procedural aspects of the implementation of the constitution".^[155] However, the first organized protest against the Bolivarian government occurred in January 2001, when the Chávez administration tried to implement educational reforms through the proposed Resolution 259 and Decree 1.011, which would have seen the publication of textbooks with a heavy Bolivarian bias. The protest movement, which was primarily by middle class parents whose children went to privately run schools, marched to central Caracas shouting out the slogan "Don't mess with my children." Although the protesters were denounced by Chávez, who called them "selfish and individualistic," the protest was successful enough for the government to retract the proposed education reforms and instead enter into a consensus-based educational program with the opposition.^[166] That year, an organization known as the Coordinadora Democrática de Acción Cívica (CD) was founded, under which the Venezuelan opposition political parties, corporate powers, most of the country's media, the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce, the Frente Institucional Militar and the Central Workers Union all united to oppose Chávez's regime.^[162][167] The prominent businessman Pedro Carmona (1941–) was chosen as the CD's leader.^[162] They received support from various foreign sources.

Chávez visiting the USS Yorktown, a US Navy ship docked at Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles, in 2002.

The CD and other opponents of Chávez's Bolivarian government accused it of trying to turn Venezuela from a democracy into a dictatorship by centralising power amongst its supporters in the Constituent Assembly and granting Chávez increasingly autocratic powers. Many of them pointed to Chávez's personal friendship with Cuba's Fidel Castro and the one-party socialist government in Cuba as a sign of where the Bolivarian government was taking Venezuela.^[162] Others did not hold such a strong view, but still argued that Chávez was a "free-spending, authoritarian populist" whose policies were detrimental to the country.^[168] For instance, Venezuelan lawyer and academic Allan R. Brewer-Carías, a prominent and vocal opponent of Chávez, made the claim that under his regime the country had "suffered a tragic setback regarding democratic standards, suffering a continuous, persistent and deliberate process of demolishing institutions and destroying democracy, which has never before been experienced in the constitutional history of the country."^[169] Other academics have argued that the opposite was true, and that "the Chávez government is in fact more democratic than previous ones" because of the increased checks and balances introduced by the 1999 constitution and the introduction of workers' councils.^[170]

The pro-Chávez political analyst Gregory Wilpert argued, in his study of the Bolivarian administration, that the opposition movement was dominated primarily by members of the middle and upper classes. He further argued that this wealthy elite was particularly furious at the Bolivarian government because they themselves had lost much of their dominance over Venezuelan politics with the introduction of the 1999 constitution and the relegitamization of all areas of government that it required.^[171] He went on to argue that this wealthy elite subsequently used its control of the country's mass media to create an anti-Chávez campaign aimed primarily at the middle classes, stirring up the latent racism and classism that existed in Venezuelan culture.^[172][173] One of the most prominent examples of this was through the popularization of the racist term ese mono ("that monkey") which began to be applied to Chávez by his opponents,^{[140][174][175]} who would also often accuse him of being "vulgar and common".^{[157][174][176]} Both Venezuelan and Western opposition media also characterized Chávez's supporters, who were known as the Chávistas, as being "young, poor, politically unsophisticated, antidemocratic masses" who were controlled, funded and armed by the state,^[177] and they were regularly referred to as "hordes" in opposition media discourse, which also commonly referred to the Bolivarian Circles as "terror circles".^[175] Such descriptions have been refuted by certain academics, such as Cristóbal Valencia Ramírez, who, after studying Chavista groups, have argued that they consist of people from many classes of society, and are educated and largely non-violent.^[178] Chavista-run organizations have since claimed to have been the target of violent attacks from opposition groups: for instance, the Ezequiel Zamora National Farmers' Coordinator estimated that 50 Chavista leaders involved in the land-reform program had been assassinated during 2002 and 2003.^[179]

Coup, strikes and the recall referendum[link]

This section requires expansion with: greater detail on the various events described, using a wider range of academic sources..

A rally in favour of the 2004 effort to recall Hugo Chávez in the capital, Caracas. The recall referendum was defeated, with 59% of voters opposed to it.

On 11 April 2002, mass protests took place in Caracas against the Bolivarian government, during which guns were fired, and violence ensued involving both pro- and anti-Chávez supporters, the police and the army.^[180] Twenty people were killed and over 110 were wounded.^[181] A group of high ranking anti-Chávez military officers, likely supported by figures in the business community, media and certain political parties, had been planning to launch a coup against Chávez and used the civil unrest as an opportunity.^[182] After the plotters gained significant power, Chávez agreed to step down, and was transferred by army escort to La Orchila, and although he requested to be allowed to leave the country, he refused to officially resign from the presidency at the time. Nonetheless, the wealthy business-leader Pedro Carmona declared himself president of an interim government.^[183] Carmona abolished the 1999 constitution and appointed a small governing committee to run the country.^[155] Protests in support of Chávez along with insufficient support for Carmona's regime, which many felt was implementing totalitarian measures, led to Carmona's resignation and Chávez was returned to power on 14 April.^[184]

Chávez's reaction to the coup attempt was to moderate his approach, implementing a new economic team that appeared to be more centrist and reinstated the old board of directors and managers of the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), whose replacement had been one of the reasons for the coup.^[185][186] At the same time, the Bolivarian government began preparing for potential future uprisings or even a US invasion by increasing the country's military capacity, purchasing 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles and several helicopters from Russia, as well as a number of Super Tucano light attack planes from Brazil. Troop numbers were also increased, with Chávez announcing in 2005 the government's intention to increase the number of military reserves from 50,000 to 2,000,000.^[187]

In December 2002, the Chávez presidency faced a two-month management strike at the PdVSA when he initiated management changes. As Wilpert noted, "While the opposition labelled this action a 'general strike', it was actually a combination of management lockout, administrative and professional employee strike, and general sabotage of the oil industry."^[188] The Chávez government's response was to fire about 19,000 striking employees for illegally abandoning their posts, and then employing retired workers, foreign contractors and the military to do their jobs instead. This move further damaged the strength of Chávez's opposition by removing the many managers in the oil industry who had been supportive of their cause to overthrow Chávez.^[188]

Following the failure of these two attempts to remove Chávez from power, the opposition finally resorted to legal means in order to try to do so. The 1999 constitution had introduced the concept of a recall referendum into Venezuelan politics, and so the opposition called for such a referendum to take place. A 2004 referendum to recall Chávez was defeated. 70% of the eligible Venezuelan population turned out to vote, with 59% of voters deciding to keep the president in power.^[158][189] Unlike his original 1998 election victory, this time Chávez's electoral support came almost entirely from the poorer working classes rather than the middle classes, who "had practically abandoned Chávez" after he "had consistently moved towards the left in those five and a half years".^[190] Meanwhile, some figures in the opposition movement began calling for the United States military to intervene and invade the country in order to topple Chávez.^[189]

"Socialism of the 21st Century"[link]

This section requires expansion with: further information on Chavez's adoption of socialism and the policies implemented in 2005 and 2006..

The various attempts at overthrowing the Bolivarian government from power had only served to further radicalize Chávez. In January 2005, he began openly proclaiming the ideology of "Socialism of the 21st Century", something that was distinct from his earlier forms of Bolivarianism, which had been social democratic in nature, merging elements of capitalism and socialism. He used this new term to contrast the democratic socialism which he wanted to promote in Latin America from the Marxist-Leninist socialism that had been spread by socialist states like the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China during the 20th century, arguing that the latter had not been truly democratic, suffering from a lack of participatory democracy and an excessively authoritarian governmental structure.^[48]

In May 2006, Chávez visited Europe in a private capacity, where he announced plans to supply cheap Venezuelan oil to poor working class communities in the continent. The leftist Mayor of London Ken Livingstone welcomed him, describing him as "the best news out of Latin America in many years".^[191]

Third Presidential Term: 2006–present[link]

In the presidential election of December 2006, which saw a 74% voter turnout, Chávez was once more elected, this time with 63% of the vote, beating his closest challenger Manuel Rosales, who conceded his loss.^[189] The election was certified as being free and legitimate by the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Carter Center.^{[192][193][194]} After this victory, Chávez promised an "expansion of the revolution."^[195]

United Socialist Party of Venezuela and domestic policy[link]

On 15 December 2006, Chávez publicly announced that those leftist political parties who had continually supported him in the Patriotic Pole would unite into one single, much larger party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, PSUV).^[104] In the speech which he gave announcing the PSUV's creation, Chávez declared that the old parties must "forget their own structures, party colours and slogans, because they are not the most important thing for the fatherland."^[104] According to political analyst Barry Cannon, the purpose of creating the PSUV was to "forge unity amongst the disparate elements [of the Bolivarian movement], providing grassroots input into policy and leadership formation, [and] uniting the grassroots and leadership into one single body."^[196] It was hoped that by doing so, it would decrease the problems of clientelism and corruption and also leave the movement less dependent on its leadership:^[196] as Chávez himself declared, "In this new party, the bases will elect the leaders. This will allow real leaders to emerge."^[196]

The logo for the PSUV, Chávez's openly socialist political party founded in 2007.

Chávez had initially proclaimed that those leftist parties which chose to not dissolve into the PSUV would have to leave the government, however, after several of those parties supporting him refused to do so, he ceased to issue such threats.^[197] There was initially much grassroots enthusiasm for the creation of the PSUV, with membership having rising to 5.7 million people by 2007,^[196][198] making it the largest political group in Venezuela.^[199] The United Nations' International Labour Organization however expressed concern over some voters being pressured to join the party.^[200]

In 2007, the Bolivarian government set up a constitutional commission in order to review the 1999 constitution and suggest potential amendments to be made to it. Led by the prominent pro-Chávez intellectual Luis Britto García, the commission came to the conclusion that the constitution could include more socially progressive clauses, such as the shortening of the working week, a constitutional recognition of Afro Venezuelans and the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.^[189] It also suggested measures that would have increased many of the president's powers, for instance increasing the presidential term limit to seven years, allowing the president to run for election indefinitely and centralizing powers in the executive.^[189] The government put the suggested changes to a public referendum in December 2007.^[201] Abstention rate was high however, with 43.95% of registered voters not turning out, and in the end the proposed changes were rejected by 50.65% of votes.^[189][202] This would prove to the first electoral loss that Chávez had faced in the thirteen electoral contests held since he took power,^[189] something analysts argued was due to the top-down nature of the changes, as well as general public dissatisfaction with "the absence of internal debate on its content, as well as dissatisfaction with the running of the social programmes, increasing street crime, and with corruption within the government."^[203]

In order to ensure that his Bolivarian Revolution became socially engrained in Venezuela, Chávez discussed his wish to stand for re-election when his term ran out in 2013, and spoke of ruling beyond 2030.^[204] Under the 1999 constitution, he could not legally stand for re-election again, and so brought about a referendum on 15 February 2009 to abolish the two-term limit for all public offices, including the presidency.^[205] Approximately 70% of the Venezuelan electorate voted, and they approved this alteration to the constitution with over 54% in favor, allowing any elected official the chance to try to run indefinitely.^{[204][205][206]}

Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas and the Bank of the South[link]

This section requires expansion with: further information on the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas and Chavez's recognition of FARC as a true military force.

Chávez (far right) with fellow Latin American leftist presidents in 2009. From left to right: Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Brazil's Lula da Silva and Ecuador's Rafael Correa.

The Bolivarian government placed a great emphasis on providing financial and medical aid to the rest of Latin America, bolstered by the profits produced by the Venezuela oil industry: indeed, in the first eight months of 2007 alone, Venezuela spent $8.8 billion in doing so, something which was "unprecedented for a Latin American country" in terms of scale.^[207] Adding to this, the Chávez administration sought greater political, economic and military alliances with those Latin American countries who had seen leftist, and in particular socialist governments elected in the early 21st century. The widespread success of left-leaning candidates at the time had led to what political analysts have described as a "pink tide" sweeping the region, although there was a great deal of diversity within this leftist trend. Those that became the closest allies of Bolivarian Venezuela were Evo Morales and his Movement for Socialism, which was elected into power in Bolivia in 2005, and Rafael Correa and his PAIS Alliance, who won the election in Ecuador in 2006.^[105]

In 2007, the socialist Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista National Liberation Front were elected into government in Nicaragua, and his administration immediately entered into deals with the Venezuelan government. On Ortega's first day in power, Chávez announced plans to aid the impoverished Central American country by forgiving the $30 million it owed Venezuela, and agreed to supply them with a further gift of $10 million in aid, as well as providing them with a $20 million loan with little or no interest designed to benefit the country's poor.^[208]

In 2004, Venezuela had been one of the founding states in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA).

As of 26 September 2009, Chávez, along with allies such as Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia, has set up a regional bank and development lender called Bank of the South, based in Caracas, an attempt to distance himself from financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. Chávez first mentioned the project before winning the Presidential election in 1998.^[209] Chávez maintains that unlike other global financial organizations, the Bank of the South will be managed and funded by the countries of the region with the intention of funding social and economic development without any political conditions on that funding.^[210] The project is endorsed by Nobel Prize winning, former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz, who said: "One of the advantages of having a Bank of the South is that it would reflect the perspectives of those in the south," and that "It is a good thing to have competition in most markets, including the market for development lending."^[211]

Chávez on a visit to Guatemala.

As the Arab Spring erupted across North Africa and the Middle East in 2011, Chávez openly criticised those leaders who had been backed by the U.S., such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, but at the same time championed those who had adhered to Arab socialist ideals, such as Syria's Bashar al-Assad, whom he called "a humanist and a brother" in spite of Assad's government's violent crackdown on protesters.^[212] Following the outbreak of the 2011 Libyan civil war, in which forces opposed to the socialist government rose up against the regime, Chávez, who had always had good international relations with Libya – describing its ceremonial leader Muammar al-Gaddafi as "a friend of mine"^[212] – offered to act as an intermediary between the government and the rebel-controlled National Transitional Council (NTC), however the latter declined the offer.^[213] During the subsequent 2011 military intervention in Libya, in which western forces attacked the Libyan army in support of the NTC, Chávez criticised the "indiscriminate bombing" of the country, accusing the United States of simply trying to "lay its hands on Libya's oil".^[214] Upon the killing of Muammar al-Gaddafi in October 2011, Chávez proclaimed that "We shall remember Gaddafi our whole lives as a great fighter, a revolutionary and a martyr. They assassinated him. It is another outrage."^[215]

Cancer and further nationalisation[link]

On 30 June 2011, Chávez confirmed in a televised address from Havana, Cuba, that he was recovering from a 10 June operation to remove an abscessed tumor with cancerous cells.^[216] Vice President Elías Jaua declared that the President remained in "full exercise" of power and that there was no need to transfer power due to his absence from the country.^[217] A 2 July report in El Periódico de Catalunya reported that, according to Venezuelan diplomatic sources, Chávez had "colon cancer that has perforated the intestinal wall and has caused an infection in the abdomen."^[218] On 3 July, the Venezuelan government denied, however, that Chávez had colon cancer, and stated that the tumour had been completely removed, further stating that Chávez was heading for "complete recovery".^[219] On 17 July 2011, television news reported that Chavez had returned to Cuba for further cancer treatments.^[220]

Chávez gave a public appearance on his 57th birthday in which he stated that his health trouble had led him to radically reorient his life towards a "more diverse, more reflective and multi-faceted" outlook, and he went on to call on the middle classes and the private sector to get more involved in his Bolivarian Revolution, something he saw as "vital" to its success.^[221] Soon after this speech, in August Chávez announced that his government would nationalise Venezuela's gold industry, taking it over from Russian-controlled company Rusoro, whilst at the same time also moving the country's gold stocks, which were largely stored in western banks, to banks in Venezuela's political allies like Russia, China and Brazil.^[222]

Political philosophy[link]

19th century general and politician Simón Bolívar provides a basis for Chávez's political ideas.

Hugo Chávez defines his political position as Bolivarianism, an ideology developed by himself which he claims is influenced by Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), a 19th-century general who led the fight against the imperialist Spanish authorities, and who is widely revered across Latin America today. Chavez claims that his movement is inspired by Bolivar because Bolivar is widely popular, so this puts the stamp of approval of Bolivar on his political movement.Along with Bolívar, the other two primary influences upon Bolivarianism are Simón Rodríguez (1769–1854), a philosopher who was Bolívar's tutor and mentor, and Ezequiel Zamora, (1817–1860), the Venezuelan Federalist general.^[223] Political analyst Gregory Wilpert, in his study of Chávez's politics, noted that "The key ingredients for Chávez's revolutionary Bolivarianism can be summarized as: an emphasis on the importance of education, the creation of civilian-military unity, Latin American integration, social justice, and national sovereignty. In many ways this is not a particularly different set of principles and ideas to those of any other Enlightenment or national liberation thinker."^[224]