A tribute in facts

Best tribute that can be paid to Hugo Chavez, man who changed face of his country and Latin America, comes in facts.

The best tribute that can be paid to Hugo Chavez, the poor boy from the plains of Barinas, who within a decade-and-a-half changed the face of his country and Latin America, comes in the facts. In 1999, when Chavez assumed the presidency through a ballot, household poverty in Venezuela stood at 55 per cent. By 2009, it had fallen to 26.4 per cent, and the decline has continued. Unemployment over the same period fell from 15 per cent to 7.8 per cent. Lives changed dramatically as a result of sweeping reforms bringing in healthcare, education and welfare for the people.

No one had expected the maverick ‘comandante’ to die so soon, aged only 58 — on March 5  — of cancer-related complications in a Caracas hospital. The news of the cancer had been announced 21 months ago, but the death of the man — who took on the US, scoffed at its leaders and united Latin American countries under his own vision of a Bolivarian revolution, inspired by Simon Bolivar, the region’s legendary liberation hero — is still hard to accept. Chavez, who rather than holding cabinet meetings, preferred speaking to his people for hours, live, over television and radio, had again swept to power in 2012. He had, after leading a failed coup attempt in 1992, shown that change through the ballot was possible. He had also survived a 2002 coup d’etat attempt, backed by the US — a country within which he is reviled.

Chavez used Venezuela’s oil wealth for the good of its people. They responded by turning out in huge numbers at the main square in Caracas as his death was announced by Vice-President Nicolas Maduro, who is also his successor. New polls are now due in 30 days. Through these, the extraordinary legacy of Hugo Chavez, with his trademark red beret, is expected to live on. His influence will be hard to destroy, with the wave of change he brought in having already swept across the region.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2013.