Chavez Dies: Venezuela's Revolution Loses Its Voice

Hugo Chavez won the Venezuelan presidency in 1998 by telling voters the political class had stolen their country's oil wealth, and he spent the next fourteen years redistributing that wealth through social programs that slashed poverty by half while hollowing out the institutions that might have sustained the gains after he was gone. He died of cancer on March 5, 2013, at age 58, leaving behind a deeply polarized nation, a cult of personality, and an economy almost entirely dependent on oil prices staying high. They did not. Chavez was born on July 28, 1954, in Sabaneta, Barinas state, to a family of modest means. He joined the Venezuelan army, rose to lieutenant colonel, and led a failed coup against President Carlos Andres Perez in February 1992. The coup collapsed within hours, but Chavez's televised surrender, in which he took personal responsibility and said "por ahora" (for now), made him a folk hero. He was pardoned in 1994 and won the presidency four years later with 56 percent of the vote. His Bolivarian Revolution, named for independence hero Simon Bolivar, rewrote the constitution, nationalized key industries including the oil sector, and launched a network of social programs called Misiones. Mission Barrio Adentro brought Cuban doctors to poor neighborhoods; Mission Robinson taught literacy to 1.5 million adults; Mission Mercal provided subsidized food. By the World Bank's measures, poverty fell from 50 percent to 27 percent between 1998 and 2011. The gains came at enormous cost. Chavez gutted the state oil company PDVSA after a 2002 strike, replacing 18,000 experienced workers with political loyalists. Oil production began a decline it never reversed. He packed the Supreme Court, shut down opposition media, and rewrote electoral rules to favor his party. Annual inflation rose steadily, and by the time of his death, the economy depended almost entirely on oil revenue, which accounted for 96 percent of export earnings. Chavez was diagnosed with cancer in June 2011, traveled to Cuba for treatment, and was reelected in October 2012 despite his deteriorating health. He died five months into his new term. The Venezuela Chavez left behind descended into the Western Hemisphere's worst economic and humanitarian crisis within three years of his death, as oil prices collapsed and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, proved unable to govern without his predecessor's charisma.