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 Movement that went on to win the presidential election of 1998.

Chávez can be characterized as a politically motivated military man who operates outside the traditional Venezuelan establishment. As president, he claimed to promote the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. The main points of Chavéz's Bolivarianism are national sovereignty (because of United States aggression), the people's political participation through plebiscites and referendums (socialismo democrático), economic independence in opposition to business domination, moral obligations of all politicians (they must be servants of the people), and redistribution of petroleum benefits (according to principles of social justice). Chávez's major success was the new constitution in 1999 that addresses important elements of Bolivarianism and gives the president extensive power. It should be mentioned that private property rights have not been eliminated so far. However, when Chávez was inaugurated for a new term in January 2007, he announced the nationalization of CANTV, Venezuela's largest telephone company. This enterprise is controlled by Verizon. Moreover, the production and distribution of electricity will be state owned. Since the 2000 election, chavistas control the national parliament and most governments of the key states. They control the petroleum industry.

[Page 97]Chávez not only has a capacity for strategic thinking and a talent for organizing but also has remarkable rhetorical skills. These abilities turned him into a leader during a time of social unrest, and he instigated an anticorruption movement with much popular support in the 1990s. He won the elections in 1999 with an antioligarchy and anticorruption campaign, claiming to be the real leader and representative of the poor. Chávez talks like the pueblo, he dresses like the pueblo, and he behaves like the pueblo. When he wears a uniform he tries to show efficiency and well-organized management capacity, qualities that real political leadership require to manage crises. He makes excessive use of the national flag and the national colors wherever he appears in public, and the untouchable Libertador Simón Bolívar is omnipresent. Chávez tries to emphasize his personal warmth by giving the impression that his government supports excellent welfare programs to assist needy persons.

Chávez and chavistas are opposed by the commercial press such as the mainstream newspaper El Universal and the television channels Venevisión, Globovisión, Televen, and Radio Caracas Televisión. He and his followers are constantly accused of violating the freedom of speech. That means that the political opposition still has the power to influence public opinion by some mainstream mass media. But Chávez continues to attempt to intimidate the press—for instance, he recently announced that the license of Radio Caracas Televisión, the oldest television channel of Venezuela, would not be renewed. He accused the company of having backed an attempted coup against him in 2002. In response, Chávez founded his own Bolivarian Circles to promote Bolivarian ideology in the barrios (districts) and cuadras (blocks). Moreover, the president of Venezuela relies on his own trade union, Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (National Union of Workers) and the Army.

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