Chávez, Hugo (1954–)

Hugo Chávez Frías, born in 1954 in the town of Sabaneta (Andean State of Barinas) to two schoolteachers of mestizo descent, has been president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela since 1999. Before assuming the Venezuelan presidency Chávez was trained as a military officer at the Venezuelan Academy of Military Science. He was also the founding member and leader of the nationalist Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement (1983) that criticized the corruption of the Venezuelan elite, the two-party system (conservative COPEI and social democratic Acción Democrática, AD), the government, and parliament. In 1992, Lieutenant Colonel Chávez participated in a failed coup d'état against the corrupt AD President Carlos Andrés Pérez (1989–1993). After being in jail for almost 2 years, he became the leader of the Fifth Republic ...