Hugo Chávez

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías

• Chávez was the president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013.
• Born into a working-class family in Sabaneta, Barinas 
• He became a military officer.
• he founded the secretive Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) in the early 1980s and worked to overthrowingthe Venezuelan political system
• He was imprisoned and released from prison after two years, he founded a social democratic political party, the Fifth Republic Movement, and was elected president of Venezuela in 1998.
• Allying himself strongly with the communist governments like:
  1. governments of Fidel and then Raúl Castro in Cuba.
  2. the socialist governments of Evo Morales in Bolivia.
  3. Rafael Correa in Ecuador.
  4. Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.
• He 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.
• However, Chavez had extensive disputes with Colombia, and supported rebels in Colombia and Ecuador. 
• Chávez was a highly controversial and divisive figure both at home and abroad, having insulted other world leaders and compared U.S. president George W. Bush to a donkey, and called him the devil
• His presidency was seen as a part of the socialist "pink tide" sweeping Latin America. 
• Chávez described his policies as anti-imperialist, being a prominent adversary of the United States' foreign policy as well as a vocal critic of U.S.-supported neoliberalism and laissez-faire capitalism 
• He was the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
• Through his socialist reforms in the country which were based on the Bolivarian Revolution, He managed to achieve many objectives:
  1. He implemented a new constitution.
  2. He also started a participatory democratic councils.
  3. He nationalized several key industries.
  4. Hugo Chávez also increased government funding of health care and education,
  5. According  to government figures, Chávez managed to reduce poverty.
• Chávez  died in Caracas on 5 March 2013 at the age of 58 due to a cancer he had suffered from.